


And Now You

by NuMo



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, Found Family, High School AU, Non-binary side character, Teen Pregnancy, alternating pov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 41
Words: 197,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26284597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: Helena is the exchange student at Lincoln High, Colorado Springs. Myka is the top student at Lincoln High, Colorado Springs. This is their story.-_-_-This is going to be a long one, you lovely people. Not a slow burn as such, just a nice and slow exploration of two girls finding each other and falling in love. Trust can’t be hurried, and neither could this story. I'm looking at 250K words/50+ chapters, which I will (and that’s a first for me) try to basically publish "in real time", since the story starts at the beginning of September, and that’s basically where we are right now. This means chapters might go up individually, in clusters, on a Friday or Monday or Sunday, right around the time when the events in them happen (click Subscribe at the top to be notified!) If a chapter spans a longer stretch of time, it will be posted at the end of said stretch, which might also mean a week or two without a chapter!The story spans the whole school year, so it’ll befinished in May, for those of you who only read once a story is fully published.
Relationships: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells, Tracy Bering/Sameen Shaw (mentioned)
Comments: 312
Kudos: 85





	1. Helena

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I never even _went_ to an American high school. Nor to a British one, either. 
> 
> I just one day thought “why don’t I try my hand at a High School AU for these two?” and started writing. And then, about 190K words in, I re-read some older Bering & Wells fics and came across the marvelous [Auxiliary Room 13](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003157/chapters/1987141) by [NerdsbianHokie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdsbianHokie/pseuds/NerdsbianHokie), which I _then_ realized I’d read before – and some of the premises and details in their story are very similar to what I’ve written. They must have stuck in my subconscious! 
> 
> I do think our two stories are different enough in approach, mood, and plot, but it would be remiss of me to not point it out. I don’t mean to infringe on NerdsbianHokie’s work with mine in any way, and we talked beforehand and they told me to go ahead. So I’ll tell you now to also go ahead and give _their_ work a read, if you haven’t yet: it’s great!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: vomiting, nausea

The first day in school is always hard. Most kids know this, though some might not remember.

The first day in a new school is harder. Helena, who’s gone through the experience quite a few times, can confidently say so.

The first day in a new school on a new continent?

Helena isn’t surprised that she’s feeling queasy, that the breakfast she’d gotten from Mrs. Frederic, her host and this school’s headmistress, is threatening to make a comeback. 

You can’t show weakness, though, not even on the first day. Especially not on the first day. Whatever you do today will set the tone for the rest of it. It’s okay to be a bit strange, because you’re new and that means you’re strange regardless, but you can’t be too out there or it’ll be a target on your back next to the ‘lives with the headmistress’ one. You can’t be a wallflower, because that makes you a target too, and you absolutely can’t be too ingratiating, either, or you’ll be called a bootlicker or worse, and that’s an invitation for bullies as well. You certainly can’t show you’re nauseous with nerves. 

Helena knows all of this.

So. First order of the day is not, as Mrs. Frederic has told her, to find her way into this slowly, no matter how apt the woman might think her advice is. First order is to _not show her nerves_ , and then to find out who’s who, who wields what power, who pulls which (and whose) strings, and where Helena can make her place. Not at the top, but high enough to be safe. 

That does include the academics, but there’s much more to it than that. 

A lot is riding on today. As Helena’s parents have hammered into her: there is no second chance for a first impression. 

She knows that the English education system and the American education system don’t really overlap greatly, and she’s about to find out just how large her gaps are, and if she’s not very careful, so will everyone else. It doesn’t help that with the way years are numbered here, Helena feels like she’s repeating a year – and she’s just about proud enough of her academic achievements to feel annoyed by that. Better to think of it just as ‘senior year’, much nicer ring to it than ‘12th grade again’. Bad enough that by sending her away in the middle of her A-levels, Helena’s parents severely messed with her academic career. 

So what that she wasn’t sure what to study yet? This is still messing with _getting into_ university. She’ll have to study the rest of the A-level material on her own, and fly back to London in May for the exams, all while sitting in classes that, if she’s lucky, will be marginally relevant to what she needs to learn.

Alright, so being sent here is _supposed_ to be a punishment, but still. 

And if worse comes to worst, she’ll be independent come January, when she turns eighteen – but still.

The fact that she’s not wearing a uniform, but had to actually pick and choose what to wear today, isn’t helping either. She’s in a button-up and slacks (at least she’s in trousers, that’s something to be grateful for; none of her school uniforms so far ever allowed trousers for girls), and she feels both under- and overdressed at the same time. Almost everyone is in jeans and short-sleeved t-shirts; some of the kids wear jewelry, even. Hairstyles are all over the place too, from severe buns to unruly, _dyed_ side-shaves. Helena has already tugged the hairband out of her ponytail in her nervousness, and she can’t really put it back up now – she has no mirror, and probably will make a botch job of it, and how would that look? She probably has stains under her arms, too, what with everything, so raising her arms to tie back her hair is doubly out of the question. And now her hair makes the back of her neck sweaty as well. Brilliant. Just brilliant. And the classroom, no: the whole _school_ smells weird too; _everything_ does, but that could just be nerves, here in this new school on a new continent.

The day starts with homeroom, something like a tutor group, as Helena understands it. At least there is no silly pledge of allegiance; no need to figure out how best to not partake. The teacher seems no-nonsense but kind. As Mrs. Lattimer goes through the pupils’ – no, _students’_ – names, Helena looks closely at everyone as they reply, trying to figure out who they are in this class. Some make an impression, others don’t – yet. Helena knows better than to write anyone off on the first day, even though they might her. 

Bering, Myka is a serious-looking girl with glasses surprisingly well-suited to her face, and curly hair in a tight ponytail that Helena envies. She’s sitting there prim and proper in unfashionable clothes and slightly threadbare trainers; probably the ace student, but with someone in her family who cares enough to make sure at least her glasses fit her. Frederic, Leena, is Mrs. Frederic’s niece who lives with her just like Helena does and who gave her a ride to school this morning, a semi-known quantity, calm and helpful, lighter of skin than her aunt and with curls even more exuberant than Bering’s. Sitting next to her is the unfortunately named Jinks, Steve, a lanky boy with close-cropped red hair; pale skin and freckles make him look more familiar than a stranger should – she’s seen faces like his in every school she’s been in, but his, at least, looks friendly. Lattimer, Pete shares not only the name with the teacher but the chin line too; probably her son, to judge by the irreverent grin he gives her as he plops his chair forward so that all four feet are back on the ground. 

Mrs. Lattimer glares at him, then continues the roll call. 

Stukowsky, Sally might be the leader of the Mean Girls, of whatever flavor they come in this school; blonde, preppy, a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, brand names subtly but unmistakably on display on her clothes. Watkins, Nate has a jaw that rivals Pete’s and is just as tall and muscular; they’re probably both coasting along on their sporting merits rather than their academics, if what Helena has seen in movies is true. 

Then Mrs. Lattimer arrives at Wells, Helena.

Helena tries very hard to hold her chin high and not choke on her own spittle or bring up her breakfast. Everyone is looking at her, after all; she’s _new_. And the way she says “Here” tells everyone that she’s not just new, but Not From Around Here.

“Ms. Wells is an exchange student, everyone,” Mrs. Lattimer announces. “She’s from Great Britain, and will be with us the whole year. Let’s _all_ of us,” her eyes sweep the room pointedly, “make her feel welcome, alright?” She pauses for a moment, then goes into detail about the upcoming semester. 

Helena busies herself writing everything down, and tries not to think or care how many pairs of eyes might be looking at her. 

-_-_-

She makes it through the whole of homeroom and physics, the next lesson, without throwing up, but Pete open-mouthed chews crisps when Helena meets him on her way from Physics to Calculus, and either the sight or the scent (or potentially both) send her to the nearest bathroom. At least she manages not to run there, but it’s close.

“Hey, you okay in there?” comes a voice from outside the stall.

Helena had hoped that nobody was in here with her, but: no such luck. She doesn’t recognize the voice, so it’s probably not someone from homeroom. Still. Bad enough she was caught vomiting. Poise, composure, _grace_. Helena breathes deeply, then replies with a “Yes, thank you” that’s thankfully not quavering. 

“Oh,” the voice says, “you’re the British chick. Cool.” When Helena steps out of the stall, a younger girl with red hair, one strand died garish green, waits for her. “Just wanted to make sure you made it out alright,” she says. “I’m Claudia. Junior year. My brother is in your year; Josh Donovan?”

Helena shakes her head and brings out her manners. If this girl is related to someone in her class, better not brush her off right off the bat. “Sorry,” she says, “I haven’t met everyone yet.” From what she’s heard, the students of each year are divided into four homerooms; this school is _large_.

Claudia shrugs. “In case you come across him: he’s okay, as dudes go. Just don’t fall for his ‘I’m a computer genius’ shtick; _I’m_ better than he is and that’s not hard. Hey, you got some puke on your shirt.” She nods her chin at Helena’s shoulder. 

“Oh, bollocks,” Helena mutters, and turns to find the nearest mirror. She can feel ice-cold dread trickling down her back; she can’t walk around a new school in a vomit-stained shirt.

“Hey, no, don’t do that,” the redhead calls out when Helena grabs a few paper towels to rub the stain away. “You’ll just smoosh it in there and stink all day. Take it off, rinse it out, pat it dry. There’s hair dryers in the gym bathrooms. If all else fails, there’s also a stack of surplus clothes in the gym, but: ew.” She makes a face. “I mean they _say_ they wash ‘em, but: ew. If you know what I mean.”

“How come you know all of that?” Helena asks, feeling impressed. She starts to unbutton her shirt, focused more on getting it clean than on any thought of propriety or self-consciousness. Break will be over soon, and she has to fix this beforehand.

Claudia goggles as Helena’s skin comes into view, then turns on her heels to stare intently at the row of stalls. “Uh, that’s… um, I have my sources,” she says, trying to sound haughty and fiddling with one of the many bangles on her wrist. 

Helena snorts a laugh. “Of course.” She tries to find a good angle with which to put her shirt under the hands-free tap. The door opens, and she flinches, and that brings her shirt into the trigger range of the tap’s sensor, too close to the actual opening. The resulting spray of water splatters all of her torso. She gives an extremely undignified squeal – the water is icy. “Bloody hell!” she shouts, glaring at whoever just came into the bathroom.

Myka Bering stands there, eyes wide behind her glasses, mouth open in surprise, door ajar around her because she’s stopped stock-still right on the threshold. 

“Would you mind?” Helena says pointedly, gesturing her into the room. 

Myka doesn’t move a muscle, and there are at least two people looking in over her shoulder now, at Helena, dripping with water and wearing only a bra as her uppers.

Helena grits her teeth and pulls Myka physically forwards so that the door can swing shut on at least one wolf whistle.

“Wh-” Myka splutters, pulling her hand from Helena’s grasp and looking around the room. “Claud? What’s going on here?”

“Great British Barf Off,” Claudia says matter-of-factly, pointing at Helena who wants nothing more than to sink into the ground but channels her mortification into forced nonchalance. “Got stuff on her shirt,” Claudia goes on, “took it off to rinse it out, got startled by ye olde giraffe,” she sketches a little bow to Myka, who scowls, “hey presto, waterworks.” She makes a great show of wiping a drop from her cheek and shaking it off her fingers. Helena doesn’t buy it for a second. 

Then Helena glances down at the shirt in her hands. It is sopping wet. There is no way she’s going to get it dry between now and- 

The two-minute bell for the next period rings. 

“Shit,” she hisses.

“Aaand that’s my cue,” Claudia announces and scarpers. 

Myka’s eyes flicker from Helena’s face to the shirt in her hands to her own wristwatch to the door. She does take great care not to linger on Helena’s naked skin, Helena notices; something to be grateful for in this whole mess. “I, uh… I got a spare shirt in my locker,” Myka says, words stumbling out in a rush. “If you’ve got a second, I’ll grab it.” She points her thumb over her shoulder. 

“Oh, you’re a godsend,” Helena replies fervently. “Yes, please.” 

Maybe it’s a good idea to be on Myka Bering’s good side? Ace students are intelligent, and intelligence is valuable. And sometimes an ace student can be surprisingly nice. And a dry shirt, however unfashionable, is preferable to the water-logged mess in Helena’s hands.

It seems to take Myka barely half a minute to return, out of breath and with a balled up white shirt in her hands. “Here,” she pants, thrusting it at Helena. “Freshly washed, just, you know, just thought I’d tell you. But, um. More of an undershirt, really. For sports,” she adds, and suddenly she’s blushing. “Sorry about that.”

“Better than sopping wet,” Helena says with another attempt at casualness, tossing her shirt next to the sink and struggling into the one Myka gave her. A sports shirt. She suppresses a sigh; at least it is clean and not too crinkled from having been balled up in Myka’s hands. At least it fits, and isn’t too figure-hugging, or the ridiculously loose kind of basketball jersey. “Perfect,” Helena fibs, tugging at the shirt’s hem. It looks ridiculous paired with her slacks, but it’ll just have to do. Her stomach roils again; she tries to ignore it. “Thank you so much.”

Myka nods. “We should get going,” she says, cheeks still flaming. “What’s your next subject?”

“Calculus. BC,” Helena adds, remembering that there are two different courses for some weird reason. BC was the best fit for her previous knowledge, Mr. Secord said, so that’s what she chose.

Myka nods. “Down the hall, second door left,” she says. “You need to get going, Mr. Kruger doesn’t like people being late.”

Valuable. Helena nods gratefully. “Thanks again,” she says, and heads for the door.


	2. Helena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: vomiting, nausea

Somehow, Helena gets through the first week. 

She manages to vomit only twice more in school, both times without anyone seeing. She’s getting good at suppressing the heaves, at swallowing what she can’t suppress without anyone the wiser. She has to; puking is something that people will pick up on. Next thing you know they’ll talk about her being pregnant; Helena knows how this goes. So, no: suppressing, swallowing, lots of chewing gum, to explain away the frequent bobbing of her throat. She loathes the taste of mint, but it is better than the taste of stomach acid, so there is that. At least chewing gum (no sugar, no blowing bubbles) is allowed in school, apparently for something called stimming? – Helena doesn’t care, she simply chews.

It’s just nerves, that’s all. And the food. Good Lord, the food. Things taste different, smell different, and if they’re not fatty, they’re sugary, or over-salted. Sometimes they’re all three. Sometimes that’s all that’s available in the school cafeteria. She just needs to tell her stomach that. That’s all. Leena tells her to drink a lot, even sends slightly concerned looks her way whenever she deems Helena’s water bottle to not be empty enough. 

The first days consist mostly of teachers giving them an outline of their class’ content. Helena compares those against what she’ll need to know for her A-levels, even though she’s done that with Mr. Secord already. Double-checking never hurts, though, not when it’s about something this important; if she wants to pass her A-level exams come May, there can be no surprises. It’s not a perfect match by any stretch, but doable, she thinks, with this material and the home-study books she’s purchased. Mrs. Frederic has encouraged her to reach out to the respective teachers for support, which Helena might do – if and when necessary. In her experience, coming to the attention of a teacher is rarely beneficial. For now, she has a list of things that she’ll need to study on her own, and that’ll suffice. 

She has another list, much larger and more elaborate and all in her head, on who is who in her year. 

Sally and her clique of girls might seem the obvious choice to latch on to, but Sally is vapid as candy floss, and her over-friendliness a cover for the kind of staggering insecurity that will turn on anyone on a dime, especially a foreign exchange student with no other ties or advantages. Besides, they share literally not a single subject.

Nate seems interested in Helena’s looks; Pete does too. Getting involved with a sports star might be an acceptable back-up strategy if all else fails, but it hasn’t yet, so Helena keeps them both at a distance she hopes is a good medium between friendly and not too encouraging.

Steve Jinks and Josh Donovan are gay – not involved with each other, just openly gay. There isn’t a lot of bullying involved, which is a breath of fresh air, but they both are also nowhere near the top of the food chain. Claudia Donovan, by the way, is in Helena’s computer science class – as well as her brother Josh. This seems to aggravate Josh and tickle Claudia pink in equal measure; Helena stays out of it, even if she thinks befriending Claudia might be worthwhile: the kid knows _a lot_ about the subject, more than Helena even though comp sci was one of her A-levels. It’s odd to have kids from different years in one class; there’s a Tracy Bering in Helena’s calculus class and Helena wonders if she’s related to Myka Bering – the two don’t look all that alike, but the last name can’t be that common, can it? A cousin, perhaps? 

Leena is too kind (and too related to the headmistress – no: the principal; Helena needs to remember to use the proper names for things) to rank high up or down low on the food chain. Potentially someone to stick with, although in Helena’s experience kindness rarely translates into influence. Relations sometimes do, though. 

Myka Bering is… something that Helena can’t quite put her finger on. Myka _is_ friends with Pete, Leena, Claudia, Josh and Steve, so not exactly the loner that some top students are, but she is, very firmly, _the_ top student; the only one except Helena to have an all-AP curriculum. And yet no one gives Myka grief about it. There’s a bit of ‘ice queen’ talk from Sally and her clique, some scoffs from Nate and his football friends, but nothing too serious, and Myka doesn’t seem to give a single bloody fig, secure and happy with her circle of friends whenever Helena watches her, them, in the cafeteria. 

So maybe Myka Bering and her circle are a good choice?

Helena would certainly like to be this carefree.

The chance for befriending her comes in their second week, when Mr. Hernandez, the physics teacher, asks the class to find lab partners. Helena happens to be seated right next to Myka, so she beats the rush (yes, there actually is a rush) and asks her. “How about you and me?” Helena knows she’s good at physics. She was top of her class back home, and she is here, too, as far as she can tell yet. So, really, it’s not too odd of a suggestion, is it? 

Myka _gapes_ at it. She and Helena haven’t spoken beyond a few words of courtesy when Helena returned Myka’s shirt, beyond the occasional awkward ‘hi’ or ‘hello’ when they run into each other outside of the four classes they share. Color rises in Myka’s cheek, and she gulps. “Um, yes. Yeah. Sure,” she stutters. 

This is the third conversation they’ve had that’s halfway worthy of the term, and the third time Myka has blushed. 

It is disconcertingly charming.

Behind Myka’s shoulder, Helena can see quite a few faces fall, or even scowl. Sally is one of the latter, although something tells Helena that Myka wouldn’t have picked Sally anyway. But that Sally actually tried to team up with the Ice Queen is something to keep in mind – Helena doesn’t quite know yet whose right side she needs to stay on, and she just lost points with Sally, who apparently holds Myka in some kind of regard at least. 

It’s a risk, but sometimes you have to take those.

At the end of the school day, as Leena drives them home, Helena finds out just how quickly news spread at Lincoln High. 

“I hear you teamed up with Myka in physics,” Leena says with an easy smile. 

Helena blinks. “Yes?” she hedges.

“Good on you.” Then Leena’s smile fades, though. “Look, I don’t know how strong your physics game is, but Myka is the best in everything – except when it comes to actual science experiments. Better with the theory, you know? So, for your sake and hers, I hope you’re good at that, otherwise it’s going to be a difficult year.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Nausea begins to uncoil in Helena’s stomach again. Is there a problem? What is Leena getting at? 

“As a heads-up,” Leena shrugs. “Myka has worked incredibly hard to be top of the class. Still does. She deserves a lab partner who lifts her up.”

“As opposed to someone who’d drag her down, you mean?” Helena will admit she’s sounding a bit waspish. At least she managed to swallow the ‘like me’ that was trying to tack itself on at the end there. Leena is probably only looking out for her friend, she reminds herself.

Leena presses her lips together. “I did not say that,” she says carefully. “I really did mean it in a positive way. Something I hope for rather than-”

“A warning?” Helena can see Leena suppress a sigh and knows she has to dial back her reaction. It won’t do to aggravate Leena; she bloody well lives in the same house. “Sorry, that came out a bit… harsher than intended.”

“That’s alright,” Leena says easily.

“For your information,” Helena adds, “physics has always been one of my strongest subjects.” Best not to boast too much. After all, it might not be, over here.

“Good.” Leena is smiling again, as if nothing ever happened. 

Helena hedges some more, then decides to go for it. “Anything else I should know about the people in our year?”

Leena pulls into the driveway, puts her car in park, and gives Helena a piercing look. “I’d say you’ve got most of them clocked already, haven’t you?”

Helena bites back her first, impulsive reply – which would have been denial. Leena doesn’t look as though she thinks this is a bad thing; Leena’s expression is… understanding, if Helena can pinpoint anything. 

“Hey, I get it,” Leena adds. “In a new situation, figuring people out, and fast, is survival. _Believe_ me, I get it.” 

Helena might not have put it that way, but Leena is right. So Helena takes another risk and simply nods. She’s not letting down her guard, though. She can’t; not yet. 

“You know-” Leena’s eyes are a bit narrower now, almost speculative, “I think teaming up with Myka might have been the best move you could have made.” 

Helena only raises her eyebrows at that, but Leena refuses to elaborate. 

Physics is the first subject after homeroom each morning, and each morning, Helena gets to observe Myka right up close, and that… is disconcertingly distractive. 

Myka’s hands are a bit larger than Helena’s; Helena is sure she could reach one key farther on the piano than Helena can, maybe even two. They’re reasonably dexterous; it’s more nerves than a lack of fine motor control that make them falter when they do (which really isn’t all that often), if Helena isn’t mistaken. Leena was right – Myka’s grasp of theory is excellent, but she does struggle sometimes to transfer that to the practical applications they’re being asked to do. 

Luckily, that is something Helena is good at. She can lift Myka up-

Damn Leena for putting that phrasing in her head. 

Damn her own eyes for straying to Myka’s neck when Myka is bending over a lab setup, to where little ringlets have escaped their bun confinement and curl around rosy skin and-

Helena stops herself. What on Earth is she thinking? Electromagnetism, that’s what she should be concentrating on. It is one of the universe’s fundamental forces, after all. 

She just can’t help thinking it’s also what pulls her to Myka. 

She really needs to stop herself before this can get out of hand. 

And then, after class, Myka stops her in the corridor and she’s blushing again and Helena _struggles_. “I, uh…” Myka seems uncomfortable, and Helena wonders what might be coming. “Listen, I know you’re smart,” Myka finally says, and Helena stills as her anxiety sky-dives straight into her stomach once more. Is Myka feeling threatened? “I, um… I need someone to study with. For this.” Myka gestures back to the physics classroom, then pushes her glasses up her nose.

What- she can’t be- “It hasn’t even been two weeks,” Helena says incredulously. “You want to study already now?”

Myka blinks. “Of course,” she says with a confused frown, “there’ll be pop quizzes. Projects. Questions from Mr. Hernandez that I need to get the answers right to.”

Helena bites her tongue rather than say that this last sentence has atrocious grammar; Myka seems to know as much herself – she is worrying her lip, and the tips of her ears are on fire now too. What Myka is saying is more important than how she’s saying it, in any case. “Pop quizzes?” Helena asks. “You mean it’s not just one mid-term and one end-term exam?”

Myka’s mouth drops open. “Hell no.”

“Oh.” Helena thinks very hard very fast. “Is that just in physics, or across all classes?”

“All of them,” Myka says immediately. “You need to be active in class. It’s part of your grade.”

It’s Helena’s turn to feel like biting her lip now. She sucks hard on her ubiquitous chewing gum instead, swallowing down saliva and nerves. This is not what she’s used to. She has been wondering why there was so much actual conversation about the actual topic in class, but put it down to first-week informality. The grades she’ll get here aren’t as important as passing her A-level exams is, no; it’s standing out that’s the problem at this point. If everyone partakes in class conversation except her, it’s going to look bad.

“I thought you were just… you know, shy. What with you being an exchange student,” Myka goes on with an apologetic smile that involves only one corner of her mouth and is, just like her hands, awfully distracting. Her eyes are hazel, Helena notices. And pretty. She shakes herself out of it; she needs to focus. “Anyway,” Myka is going on, “I know you have a good handle on physics, so I thought, you know…” She shrugs again, and her gaze drops to her trainers. “I could, um… catch you up on the American part of English lit in turn,” she offers. “If necessary.”

Helena slowly nods. She’s going to need all the help she can get, atrocious grammar or not. All the better if the help she’ll be getting is transactional; she won’t owe Myka a favor. Or rather, another favor – Helena has returned the shirt, yes, but the debt is still open. “Okay,” she says. 

A relieved smile washes over Myka’s face. “Awesome.”

Americans say this a lot. Myka says it like she means it, though.


	3. Myka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is told from Myka's POV. It spans about the same amount of time as the first two chapters, and then moves forward a bit.

This is Myka Bering’s senior year and she is ready to let loose a bit. Junior year she loaded with all the AP classes she wanted to have on her transcript – those she hadn’t already taken in freshman or sophomore year, that is. Yes, Myka is the kind of person who takes an AP class as a freshman, just to see if she’s up to it. 

She was.

This year, the only classes that matter to her are psychology (because it’s interesting to know how people tick) and English Lit because if there’s one thing she loves – not: wants to do as a job, but: _loves_ – it’s literary analysis. Yes, Myka is that kind of person too. 

Her other classes are AP classes too, but they’re more for the ‘well-rounded’ aspect of things – and because she can. Also because they’re not the most demanding classes of the AP curriculum, to be frank.

Some people call her an over-achiever, but it’s really more the fact that learning things has always come easy to her; having an eidetic memory helps, of course. And it’s… nice, seeing her name on the honors roll three years in a row. Myka would describe herself as having a goal – and running her father’s bookstore is Not It, for all her love of stories and literary analysis. She’s not a Bering _son_ , anyway; maybe if he’d called the store something else she would feel more connected to it (or to him), but things being as they are, nothing is keeping her in Colorado Springs when school’s out.

Myka is going to be the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

The country’s justice system is rotten as hell, and she’s going to change that – appropriate undergrad degree, law school, clerking for a couple years, become a judge, _make better rulings_. That’s what her junior year was geared towards, academics and extracurriculars both. That’s what she _will do_.

It’s either go into law or into politics, and politics is _disgusting_. Even in high school – she considered running for class president, because it would look good, but a few stints into the student government firmly told her that she was not ruthless enough for politics, not even at this level. So law it is. She’s going for a double major (either English and political science, or pol sci and psychology, she hasn’t quite decided yet) at Yale, and because it’ll be _Yale_ , she’s going for all the scholarships she can possibly get. Mr. Secord, Lincoln High’s academic counselor, says she’s on a good course, and to keep going strong; she’s not going to be slacking off in senior year, but she did opt to put the less challenging AP classes in it. 

She’d given junior year all she’d got. Even her dad, in a rare show of support, had allowed her to not work in the store at all that year and concentrate on her goal instead, provided that during senior year she work there every single weekend. And concentrate Myka did, acing her SATs and ACT, achieving a 4.8 GPA, assembling an impressive list of extracurriculars, getting selected for Girls’ State and serving as judge at the mock trial there, winning gold at the County Fencing Invitational and coming second in the inter-high school tournament; in short: accomplishing almost every goal she set herself. Full-on winning the second tournament too would have been the crowning glory, but silver will hopefully still be impressive enough for an Ivy League college. 

She figures with all of that she’s earned a little bit of respite this year; _maybe_ a taste of coasting here and there. College will be hard enough next year. No fencing, no matter how much Coach Valda growled at her when she told him. If she works weekends, she can’t do tournaments, it’s as easy as that. And that means no fencing training after school, either; it’s too expensive to keep up just for the fun of it. She’s joined the school’s soccer team instead for the sports credit, and to broaden her experience of playing as part of a team (if anyone asks). Maybe she’ll be able to put all her footwork training to good use here; who knows. The team isn’t on a competitive level and train only once per week; they play mostly for fun, that’s also something new to learn. Once per week! Fencing was three times, plus camps on, like, every other weekend; Myka doesn’t know what she’ll _do_ with herself with all that time. 

Well, not quite. Soccer is Monday afternoon; on Tuesday and Thursday after class, Myka works for Jane Lattimer in the school’s library, has done so since freshman year – an actual paying job, first to save up for a car, and now to pay for gas money. Wednesdays and Fridays afternoons will be her homework days. Last year she used to cram it in wherever she could; the idea of having designated afternoons for that, and having her evenings for reading _for fun_ instead of for school? Sounds heavenly. 

Truth to tell, she’s looking forward to a workload a bit under eighty, ninety hours per week.

On the first morning of school before homeroom, Pete tells Myka he’s heard from his mother that there will be an exchange student coming from England. Lincoln High’s first exchange student, to be exact, and while Pete dreams of a ‘hot British chick’, he also teases Myka that this person could ‘be the Ron to your Hermione. Or the Luna to your Ginny?’ 

Myka rolls her eyes at him, as she does every time he (or someone else) tries to set her up. She just… she isn’t interested. 

She’s never been. She’s seen the words ‘asexual’ and ‘aromantic’ on the school’s GSA posters and thinks maybe she’s that, but generally she just isn’t thinking about it too much. _Lots_ of other things to think about; to _prioritize_. Frankly, not having crushes is a bit of a relief, seeing how they distract people. Her mom keeps saying ‘you’ll find someone eventually’ and things along that line, and, sure, why not. Until then, Myka is perfectly happy to concentrate on school, thank you very much.

She’s happy to be the outsider who sees most of the game. Like, it’s not that Myka doesn’t understand why people become interested in each other, or how sex works. She understands plenty, and she can almost always tell if a couple will work out or not. Pete calls it gut feeling, but Myka knows she’s observant, ever since her kindergarten teacher used the word to describe her and she remembered it and looked it up at home. 

Maybe it has something to do with her dad. 

Myka rolls her eyes at the thought – yeah, yeah, yeah, so she has _daddy issues_. 

But who wouldn’t, with a dad who names his bookstore Bering _and Sons_ before he even has a single kid? Who wouldn’t, with a dad to whom even the best of reports and grades and tournament placements aren’t ever good enough? 

Thank god Myka has other people than just him. Pete is always there, always willing to cheer her on; his mom too, if maybe a bit less indiscriminately so. But when Jane Lattimer gives you a ‘well done’, you know it’s earned. There’s Mr. Nielsen, Myka’s government and politics teacher – she’s not in any of his classes this year, but the past two years he’s been nothing but encouraging her, to the point where he actually said she should make this her career, one way or another. 

As for her other family members, well. Jean Bering… tries. And Tracy is oblivious. She’s a year and a bit younger than Myka, and by the time she came around, Warren Bering had gotten over his Myka disappointment – or that’s what Myka reasons, anyway. Tracy gets the ‘well dones’ from their father, and Myka tries very hard not to be jealous, but Tracy also gets the easy friendships, gets along with people, has all the extrovert genes that Myka so sorely lacks. 

Anyway, Myka is observant. Ever on the lookout for an expression on her father’s face that tells her she did well, ever on the lookout for the opposite, too; the scowl that tells her she’s got a dressing-down coming. 

So when she sees a new girl in class, that first day of school, Myka starts observing her. 

Helena Wells is ridiculously attractive. Like, movie-star attractive. Her eyes, her nose, her cheeks are unlike anything Myka has ever seen before; her jaw is… chiseled? Can a female jaw be chiseled? The way it moves as she chews on her gum, Myka can see the muscles involved, and… wow. And her hair is _incredible_. Sleek in a way Myka’s could never be, even when she straightens it; it glides like silk whenever Helena moves her head. Myka is one hundred percent certain that Helena knows how good-looking she is; there are a few gestures Helena makes that seem _meant_ to be observed. And those gestures are so… elegant. The way she moves is liquid, like she’s dancing. 

It’s like she’s everything Myka is not. 

Myka knows how to move her body; seven years of fencing at the very least will do that. She mostly knows how to get her extremities to where she wants them to go; she mostly doesn’t fall over her own feet anymore. But she could never, _ever_ , imitate the way Helena moves. Myka knows that she herself is alright to look at, now that she’s rid of her braces and her skin has mostly cleared up (Tracy is the pretty one). And the best Myka can say about her hair is that she has a grip on it most days. But she could never, _ever_ , have hair like Helena’s, and no one would _ever_ call her jaw _chiseled_. 

Helena Wells is observant too; not overtly, but Myka still sees it. Helena observes everything and everyone around her, and Myka approves of it. Getting your bearings in a new school is good sense; more so since it’s not just a new school but a new country as well. They might speak one language, but the way Helena talks is a reminder that not even that language is the same, not precisely. 

And then Myka observes a lot more of Helena than she bargained for, in the north hallway ground floor girl’s bathroom on their first day of school.

And it’s her own fault. 

And it – the sight, not that it’s her fault (Myka likes to be precise) – throws her for the biggest loop of her life. 

With all of her mental discipline, she keeps her thoughts and words lined up well enough, once Helena’s surprisingly strong grip on her wrist (which Myka can still feel days later) startles her out of her freeze. Reacts decently enough, offers her help, flies down the hallway to her locker to get her soccer shirt as if Mercury’s own wings were on her sneakers, remembers belatedly that a shirt that goes under a soccer jersey might be _just a bit_ too tight or sheer for class, finds herself envisioning how Helena might look in it and almost stumbles over her own feet as though the aforementioned wings were getting in the way, does her best not to ogle as Helena puts the shirt on-

Helena’s skin is creamy and has freckles and shifts as she moves, and even now, days later, Myka feels her fingers tingling at the memory of it, at the thought of how it might feel to touch the skin and to feel it move underneath her fingertips and it is driving her to _distraction_. 

First, she’s never felt this way about _anyone’s_ skin. 

Second, she doesn’t really feel this way about any particular boy’s skin.

Okay, third, she doesn’t feel this way about any _other_ particular girl’s skin either, so there’s that. 

Still, Helena _is_ a girl, and while the school _has_ a GSA and half the girls on the soccer team are gay and Ben is non-binary and nobody in the class batted an eye – much anyway – when Steve and Josh were dating last year, this is a bit more personal, is hitting a bit more closely to home. 

She can’t really talk about it with Pete, because she’s pretty certain Pete also has a crush on Helena, which means she is also pretty certain that giving him ideas about his crush potentially having the skin of her stomach touched by a girl will kind of derail the rest of the conversation, even if that girl is his best friend and _really_ needs him to stay _in_ the conversation. 

And really, even though she’s friends with Steve and Josh and Leena too, she only feels close enough to Pete to even consider choosing him to talk to. Her family, of course, is completely out of the question. 

So she doesn’t. Doesn’t talk with anyone about it, tries to forget it, which her tingly fingertips don’t really let her; tries to focus, at least, on schoolwork. This might be the year where she can let loose a bit, but a bit is a _bit_ and not ‘completely’, even if it’s the first week. Yale is unforgiving, and thus so is Myka.

It helps matters a little bit that Helena doesn’t talk much in class. Except physics, which turns out to be as tough a subject as Myka has predicted, and also seems to be Helena’s- 

She doesn’t want to think of it as ‘Helena’s passion’. 

She really, really doesn’t want to. But Helena really does have a… a _flair_ in physics that she doesn’t have in any of the other classes she shares with Myka. She doesn’t just know this stuff or is interested in it; she understands it, she _gets_ it, and it’s really cool to see.

As Myka steals glances at the other girl every now and then during this first week, she notices that in all other classes, Helena looks a bit puzzled at how often other people do talk. As in, talk to the actual teacher, not having discussions with other people on anything else but the class’ topic. 

Do British teachers do things differently? 

Google helps, and Myka has now learned a little more about how education can indeed be done differently in different countries. And it’s knowledge that Helena might profit from, undoubtedly, but Myka has no idea how to even begin to talk to her. 

And then _Helena_ asks _Myka_ to be her _lab partner_. 

And then the next day, when they actually set up their first experiment, Helena keeps looking at Myka’s _hands_.

Granted, probably just to make sure Myka doesn’t electrocute either of them by mistake, but still. It makes Myka self-conscious, and that makes her fingers fumble, and that _really_ doesn’t help matters. Still, though, it’s not like having Helena Wells as a physics lab partner is a hardship, what with how she gets the subject and all. Which gives Myka an idea that she puts into action after that class, before she can talk herself out of it.

 _She_ asks _Helena_ to _study with her_. 

Myka does her level best to not put an extremity in her mouth during the conversation, and it goes decently enough. She even manages to get her point across about how teachers expect different things here, so she now has a physics study bu-

Oh god. Helena Wells is going to be her study buddy. 

They agree to meet the next day, which is a Thursday, which means Myka works for Jane Lattimer in the library, cataloguing returned books and putting them back on the shelves. It’s the only other job that Myka’s father will allow her to spend time on and that’s okay, considering the pact they made for junior year. Jane is a lenient boss in that she usually allows Myka to study when there are no more books to be returned or other work to be done that day, or to simply read when there’s no more studying to be had. Still, Myka is nervous when she approaches Pete’s mom about potentially studying with Helena after all the books are back in their place. 

“The new girl?” Jane asks. “That’s very kind of you, Myka.”

Myka blushes, presses her lips together and does her best not to think of smooth skin with freckles. “I guess.”

Jane’s eyes can be very, very shrewd, and they are now. For a moment, anyway; then they soften. “As long as the cart is clear before you start, and clear before you lock up tonight, fine by me.”

“Lock up?” It isn’t the first time, so Myka is not surprised, but she wants to make sure she’s heard right.

Jane nods. “I need to head across town to pick up a load of books that a former teacher has willed to the library. And since I have only until five to do that, you’re going to be here on your own tonight.”

“Should I come with, help you carry? I can tell Helena to meet me some other time.”

“No, that’s alright,” Jane waves her off. “Thanks for asking. I’m taking Pete and a few other guys from the wrestling team; Coach Altintas says he’s happy to have them off his hands for an afternoon.”

Myka nods and straightens, and that’s that. 

Helena seems listless when she arrives a few minutes later. She keeps yawning and pinching the bridge of her nose, and it makes Myka look more closely: Helena’s make-up is enviably flawless for three in the afternoon, but underneath it, there are purple shadows beneath her eyes. She’s tired, Myka thinks. Like, zoning out in the middle of the conversation tired. Like getting flustered trying to explain Coulomb’s Law tired, and that seems unusual. Helena doesn’t seem to be the type to get flustered – or at least not the type to let anyone see that she’s flustered, anyway.

Myka remembers that they have a few course-adjacent physics books in the science section. When she returns with an armful of them, Helena’s head jerks upright from where it’s been resting on her crossed arms. 

“Sorry,” she apologizes, rubbing her forehead.

“Coffee?” Myka suggests. There’s a machine in the hallway outside the library, and while you can’t bring cups inside, Helena can still drink it in the hallway, right?

Helena shudders. “Can’t stand the stuff,” she says. “Can’t stand the concoction your vending machines call tea either. I’m stuck being tired, I suppose.” 

Myka nods. Energy drinks aren’t allowed on campus and neither is pop. Helena seems barely able to keep her eyes open; it’s a bit pitiful. “You can have a nap if you like,” Myka suggests. The armchairs they’re in, another bequest that came in year before last, are comfy enough. 

Helena opens her eyes wide. “I couldn’t,” she says, shaking her head owlishly. “Can’t sleep where someone can see. Didn’t sleep on the plane either. Whenever I see these, you know, pictures of Japanese people sleeping on the tube, I get envious.”

“Oh.” Myka thinks until she has an idea. “You could go to Mrs. Lattimer’s office. Take a nap in there. We can bring the cushions,” she offers, warming up to the thought. 

“I’m here to help you with physics,” Helena points out and then yawns. 

Myka grins. Helena isn’t really all that intimidatingly movie-star perfect when she’s barely able to keep her eyes open. “You still can, later,” Myka says with a shrug. “I read somewhere that Einstein used to hold his bunch of keys in his hand when he napped, and would hang his hand over the edge of his sofa, so that when he was under deep enough that his body would relax his fingers enough to drop his keys, it would wake him up.”

Helena blinks. “I don’t have a bunch of keys,” she says, as if that’s the main problem. 

Myka shakes her head and grins some more. “Well, you got me,” she says and pulls Helena to her feet. “Grab the back cushion,” she instructs her, and takes the seat cushion. “I’ll put a post-it on it or something,” she adds, not that Helena seems to be much bothered by the idea to leave one of the armchairs behind without its cushions. “Follow me.”

Helena heads after her without saying anything, as if she’s sleepwalking already. Jetlag still, maybe, Myka thinks to herself. Anyway, it’s kind of endearing the way Helena stumbles into Myka as they come to a halt in front of Jane’s office door. Myka unlocks it, flips on the light, and checks the room: the laptop is not on the desk, and all the file cabinets are locked. All sensitive data is inaccessible, as it should be. “Come on in,” she says to Helena, then stands aside and straightens her glasses that the collision with Helena has knocked askew.

Helena stands barely inside the room as Myka builds a bed with the cushions, and seems to fall asleep the moment her head touches the coarse fabric. Myka wonders if she’s even heard her, Myka, say that she’ll be outside, minding the library and studying on her own. 

When Myka looks in on her half an hour later, Helena is still fast asleep; curled up on her side now, face a little white sliver under dark hair in a dark room on dark cushions, one hand a small silver curlicue hanging in the air, no bunch of keys in sight. For a moment, Myka debates if she should wake her, but then Helena presses her face more deeply into the cushion, trying to get away from the light that’s spilling into the room around Myka, and Myka retreats and closes the door. 

It’s kind of peaceful to imagine that she’s guarding Helena while Helena sleeps. Myka may or may not be shushing students a bit more sternly than usual; may or may not be a bit more reluctant to leave the front desk to show a student where to find a particular book. She tries to wrap her mind around Coulomb’s Law on her own as best she can; in the end, it’s a YouTube video (with the sound coming over earphones, of course) that helps. 

She doesn’t mind one bit that Helena hasn’t tutored her like she said she would; she doesn’t begrudge the other girl the sleep she so obviously needs. A bit more difficult is the memory of how close Helena was, well in Myka’s personal space as Myka unlocked the office, _touching_ her when she stumbled. 

At five o’clock on the dot, Myka powers down the front desk computer, locks the library doors and clears the last seven books off the cart, then turns off the floor lights until only the one over the front desk is lit. She goes through her mental pre-lock-up checklist and nods; everything is in order. 

Helena seems to have no intention to wake up. She mutters something intelligible when Myka comes in calling her name, and again tries to hide her face. 

“Helena, come on, wake up,” Myka says with a laugh. “We gotta get out of here. I’ll take you home.” 

Helena groans, and pouts, and flings her arm across her eyes even though Myka hasn’t turned on the light in the room.

Myka tries very hard not to think about how adorable a sleepy Helena is. “Come on,” she repeats, crouching down next to the other girl. Should she shake her or something? 

Again, Helena mutters something. With her arm over her face, Myka has no idea what it was. 

“What was that?”

“I said,” Helena enunciates, with her crisp British diction, “I’m coming.” But then she stays right where she is. 

Myka pokes Helena’s arm until Helena angrily withdraws it, and then reaches out and up behind her and turns on the light. 

“Bloody hell!” Helena shoots up from the cushions, her eyes squeezed shut. Myka is almost sure Helena is trying to glare at her, but barely anything comes out from behind her pinched lids. At least she’s sitting up now. 

“Come on,” Myka says, standing up and reaching out her hand. “I’ll give you a lift home.”

“Home!” Suddenly, Helena’s eyes are wide. “What time is it?”

“Ten past five,” Myka says, “give or take.”

“Bloody _hell.”_ This time it’s a groan of resignation. “I never intended to stay all the way till closing time; I told Mrs. Frederic I’d be home with the last bus. All the buses are gone, right?”

Myka nods. “That’s why I’m giving you a lift.”

Helena just groans. 

Helena is the grouchiest grouch of all times as she slinks along after Myka, and promptly falls asleep again in the car even though it’s broad daylight. 

It is cute. Like, ridiculously cute. Also, so much for ‘can’t sleep in front of others’. Although, Myka can absolutely commiserate with being this level of exhausted. Also also, it’s a bit worrying when Myka pulls to the curb in front of Mrs. Frederic’s house and Helena’s head just lolls bonelessly forward. Helena makes a small sound that’s both startled and pained at the same time. 

“Sorry,” Myka quickly apologizes. 

Helena rubs her neck muscles with a wince. “I should apologize to you,” she says. “A fine job of tutoring I did.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Myka says.

“If you’re free Saturday, I’ll make up for it?”

Myka shakes her head. “I work in the bookstore on the weekends,” she says, and for the very first time since she made this pact with her dad, she wishes things were different.

“Bookstore?” For the first time this afternoon, Helena perks up. 

“My dad’s,” Myka explains.

“Your dad has a _bookstore?”_ Helena’s eyes are wide and amazed. 

Myka nods; that’s what she just said, isn’t it? “So, anyway, thanks for the offer, but Tuesdays and Thursdays will have to be it.”

Helena sighs. “I suppose.” She absentmindedly rubs her eyes, then flinches. “Oh, bollocks,” she growls, looking at the mascara on her knuckles. She shakes her head at herself. “I’m really out of it today. Myka, I’m sorry.”

“Really,” Myka repeats, “don’t worry about it. Here,” she fishes a tissue out of its little package in her backpack front pocket, and wets it from her water bottle. Helena did smoosh her make-up pretty badly. 

Helena looks at the tissue, looks at Myka, bites her lip. Shrugs. “Might as well try, I suppose,” she says quietly, and flips down the visor to peer into the little mirror. 

The light above it doesn’t turn on, and they’re in the deep shade of a tree that’s growing in Mrs. Frederic’s front yard. “Sorry,” Myka says and turns on the dome light instead, “my car’s a bit old. Bit crappy.” A tiny sixteen-year-old two-door hatchback with no AC and speakers that only work if you kick the door in just the right place – it was all she could afford, but at least it drives.

“It’s a car,” Helena shrugs, leaning up and closer to the mirror. “I wish I had one. On the other hand, you’re all driving on the wrong side,” she adds with a flippant gesture and a quirk of her lips. 

“That,” Myka says, “depends entirely on your perspective.” She’s watching the progress that the tissue is making, and it’s not much. Practically the opposite, as a matter of fact. Helena gives an exasperated sigh as she realizes it too, and Myka surprises herself by saying, “Let me?”

A moment of hesitation later, the tissue is in Myka’s hand, and Helena’s face is tilted towards her and the measly little dome light, and yeah okay, this might have been a bad decision. Helena’s eyes are a really dark brown, and a little bit bloodshot. They’re looking anywhere but at Myka, and Myka _has_ to look at them or make a botch job. 

It’s… a bit tense. Myka tells herself not to freak out; this is perfectly normal, just a girl helping another girl with her make-up, being careful not to make things worse or poke her in the eye. You gotta be gentle for that, right? You gotta put your other hand on the opposite (chiseled) cheek, to communicate to the other girl how you need her to tilt her head. Right?

Nothing weird about it. 

Just… skin under her fingertips, soft and-

Focus. Myka needs to focus.

Those are definitely exhaustion shadows underneath the makeup and the smudged mascara, and they’re coming out as Myka proceeds. Myka wishes they weren’t, that there was some way in which she could unsee them, to give Helena her privacy, then realizes Helena probably wishes for that even more.

A moment later, Myka lets the tissue sink. “Good as I can make it,” she says, feeling self-conscious in the extreme; she might not exactly have made it worse than it was, but she definitely has taken some of Helena’s makeup off, and since she doesn’t know how important said makeup is to Helena, this might be bad.

Helena gives herself a glance in the visor mirror, then looks back at Myka, shrugs, and smiles. It’s small and tired and a little bit resigned, that smile, but it does hold gratitude, so, Myka reasons, Helena can’t be too annoyed at what Myka has done to her face. “Thank you,” Helena says and reaches for the door handle.

And suddenly Myka is loath to see her go. “I’ll, uh… I’ll come with and explain to Mrs. Frederic why you’re late. Or at least back you up.” She quickly unbuckles her seat belt and is halfway around the hood of the car before Helena’s door opens. Myka pulls it open all the way, since she’s here, and holds it – it’s a bit silly; something they do in old-fashioned movies. Still, it seems like the right thing to do, and Myka always does the right thing to do. 

She can’t help but gulp when Mrs. Frederic opens the house’s front door. Myka nods along while Helena explains things, meets Mrs. F’s gaze with honest eyes and straight shoulders as if this was the principal’s office and not her doorstep, and tries not to contemplate too closely how nicely Helena’s hand had fit in hers when she helped her out of the car, or how subtly the muscles in Helena’s jaw had worked under her palm before that.

Myka is two blocks away when she pulls to the curb again and lets her forehead sink onto the steering wheel. 

She most definitely has a crush on Helena Wells.

Bollocks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried my best with outlining Myka's academics here - I hope they're believable enough. If something jumped out to you as wrong or unrealistic, please let me know.


	4. Helena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (CW for homophobic slurs)

Week three of the school year sees Helena finally feeling a little more settled. Maybe her body has gotten used to the time zone, to the new scents and flavors, to the new everything; Helena isn’t questioning the whole thing too closely. She’s just glad that she can sleep through the night, can go to class without feeling nauseous, can see Pete Lattimer eat without wanting to vomit – apart from metaphorically, because frankly, seeing Pete Lattimer eat is appalling. The way people behave in class is still quite foreign, but she’s getting used to that too. It helps that Myka is in all but two of her classes, and Leena and Josh in all but three. 

Helena starts hanging out with them mainly because Myka calls her over during lunch break the Friday after Helena embarrassingly, mortifyingly fell asleep on her. For a moment, because of said mortification, Helena contemplates pretending she hasn’t seen or heard, but… joining a group beats sitting at a table by herself. Sitting by oneself at lunch is never a good visual. And being with these people is distracting enough to almost take her mind off her embarrassment, to almost make eating lunch enjoyable, quick-witted and friendly as they are. 

Pete Lattimer has zero inhibitions, compunctions or manners, but he is kind, generous and loyal to a fault. Steve is calm and collected, but has a wicked sense of humor and a sharp eye for a person’s mannerisms; he can imitate most of the teachers to a T. Josh is clumsy in his movements and his small talk, but his mind can hold on to the wildest scientific concepts; he might not be a computer genius, but his prowess in physics is undeniable. Claudia will tease him (and everybody else in ‘the gang’) mercilessly, but no one else. With other people, she is shy to the point of reticence; she barely talks in class even though she’s smart as a whip. Leena… Leena is the kind of person you don’t notice (unless you’re observant), the kind who keeps everything running smoothly until one day she doesn’t. She can read people almost as well as Steve does; in fact, they both share an intense curiosity for why people do the things they do. It’s no surprise that they share psychology class with Myka and Helena.

Pete doesn’t share many of their classes – Pete, Myka explains with a sigh, is using his senior year to cruise by and focus on his wrestling instead, hoping to secure a scholarship through that instead of through his grades – but he still hangs out with the rest of them during lunch break. And while his table manners are atrocious, while his talk about classes is disparaging to say the least, he wouldn’t be a senior without _some_ merit to his name, so Helena looks and listens, and realizes that he’s not stupid, just too energetic to sit still and learn for any length of time. He’s the one to start calling Helena ‘H.G.’, and while she’s been called that in other schools (those _are_ her initials, after all), this is the first time it genuinely feels like a nickname, the first time it’s friendly. 

Of potential circles to be in, this one seems a good choice. 

All of them are doing their best to temper Myka’s zeal to be the absolute academic best with some good sense. Pete in particular teases Myka continually about her workload last year, which apparently was astronomical. When he hears that Myka has agreed to tutor Helena in English lit, he implores Helena – begs her on his knees, if only for comedic effect – to not add to Myka’s workload this year. Steve teases Pete about his amateur dramatics, saying the drama club has a few open spots in this year’s rendition of Much Ado About Nothing. Now, had something along those lines happened in one of her former schools, Helena would have expected fists out; no-one insinuated to a straight guy that he might want to be in a Shakespeare comedy. Being a ‘fag’ was one of the worst insults in the arsenal. Pete just laughs it off, though, and displays a solid knowledge of the play and its characters as he, Steve and Myka wax forth about which role he could play. 

No, Pete is not stupid. 

Then Pete catches Helena’s eyes on him and winks. “Don’t worry, my lady, I’m as straight as they come. Ready and willing, as they say.” Myka elbows him, and he pouts. “What? Just because she hasn’t come _on to_ me yet doesn’t mean she’s not _into_ me. A guy can hope, yeah? Shoot his shot, make sure the lady doesn’t think he’s playing for the other team. Teams. Whatever.”

Helena raises her eyebrows. She feels secure enough now to know that she doesn’t need to play to this hope of his. “If indeed you need me to spell it out for you, Mr. Lattimer,” she drawls, “by all means take this as your no. Not Beatrice’s no to Benedick; a solid no from me to you.”

“Spelled S-O-L-I-D N-O?” 

“Indeed.”

Pete grabs his chest. “You wound me, fair lady.” 

Josh snorts a laugh, Leena bites one back, Steve rolls his eyes, and Myka cuffs Pete’s arm – by now Helena knows that’s a friendly gesture between the two of them, which has several degrees of severity and meaning. This one is a friendly warning to cut it out. 

“Alright, alright,” Pete mutters, rubbing his arm for show. “So, H.G., who are you into then, if not me? And don’t say Nate, or Ricardo, or Lee, or I’ll have to kill them. They’re on the football team, and-”

“-and wrestlers don’t like football players. It’s a thing,” Josh and Steve echo, as if that’s something Pete has said a tad too often for their taste. 

Helena’s eyebrows are still up. Myka is looking at her closely, Helena sees when she glances over that way, but they both quickly drop their gazes. Helena gives a carefully calculated shrug. “I’ve been here for barely a month,” she tells Pete. “Not really decided yet.”

“Yeah, okay, but which team are you playing for?” Pete goes on. Helena just wishes he would drop it; she doesn’t want to talk about it, and she’s feeling her stomach clench in a familiar way again. “Should I ask boy names or girl names when it comes to crushes? Both? Neither?”

“Or maybe you could, you know, _not ask at all,”_ Myka intervenes. “Seriously, Pete, not everyone needs to tell you their stuff.” She turns to Helena. “I apologize for this oaf,” she says. “He might be the oldest of all of us, but he hasn’t learned about discretion yet.”

“That’s me,” Pete says, completely unabashed. “I mean, between us, we already got quite a few teams covered – I’m straight, Steve’s gay, Leena’s-”

Steve puts his hand over Pete’s mouth. That is new. Pete goggles but falls quiet, and Steve tells him, after dropping his hand again, “You don’t out people, Pete. Not even among friends. You don’t. That’s D-O-N-apostrophe-T.”

“Yeah, alright, okay,” Pete says. “Got it. Sorry.”

Helena breathes out a hopefully unobtrusive breath. 

Helena does consider herself bi, and was out as such in her last school. She’s not blind to gender so she can’t rightly call herself pan, but she is definitely not just into boys, that much she knows for certain. She’s accepted this fact about herself easily enough, but being out wasn’t voluntary, it wasn’t a pleasant experience, and she’s not planning to repeat it. Yes, she’s here for only a year, and yes, Steve and Josh seem to be accepted and not the only ones, but still, she doesn’t know the lay of the land in this school well enough, and there is not a single reason to paint yet another target on her back next to the ‘British student who lives with the principal’ one. 

And yes, she might have a _little_ bit of an interest in her English lit tutor, but so far, she has gotten not a single signal that Myka is interested in anyone, much less in her. That incident in the car might have been just Myka being kind. 

Myka _is_ kind, after all, that has become apparent to Helena by now. Kind, and thoughtful, and smart-

Helena stops herself.

She wonders which team Pete would have named Myka for, had he been allowed to continue. Not that Helena minds Steve stopping him; she whole-heartedly agrees with not outing people, but she _is_ curious, and it would have been… handy. 

Not that her curiosity and expedience are a reason to out someone. 

As she and Myka head towards the library after the last class of the day, Nate saunters over. “So, Helena,” he begins, giving her a toothy smile and Myka barely a glance. “A little cafeteria bird told me you gave Lattimer a solid no.”

Helena cocks her head. “And now you want one too?” By now she knows enough about Nate, too, to feel secure blowing him off like that; he has nothing to offer to her that tops what Myka’s circle of friends have. Next to her, Myka suppresses a laugh. 

“Whoa now,” Nate says, hands raised. “I just figured I’d shoot my shot, you know.”

Helena looks at Myka incredulously. “Do they _all_ use this metaphor?” 

Myka shrugs. “Beats me,” she says, “I’m usually not at the receiving end.”

Nate scoffs and opens his mouth for a comeback to that, and Helena just _knows_ that what’s on the tip of his tongue isn’t going to be nice. She shifts her weight and squares her shoulders under the straps of her backpack. Kenpo as a means of self-defense was the one not-classical extracurricular that her parents have allowed her, and she’s taken full advantage. “Hey,” she snaps in Nate’s direction. “I’d like to invite you to think very closely about what you are going to say next.”

He tries to scoff at her too, and then notices her changed stance. He’s a head taller than she is and probably twice her weight, but she knows moves where that doesn’t matter too much, and she takes great care to signal that to him with her body language. Next to her, Helena can feel Myka shift a little, but she doesn’t take her eyes off Nate. 

He does scoff, then, but the look in his eyes betrays him. “Well, good riddance,” he murmurs and turns away. “Jeez, you freaks,” he leaves behind.

“Lovely,” Helena mutters. Then she looks at Myka, and sees a similar readiness to fight in the other girl’s stance. She hums a little in surprise. “What’s your martial art, then?”

“Krav Maga,” Myka says as if this was the most natural matter in the world. Then she shifts her backpack on her shoulder, pushes her glasses up her nose, and suddenly no longer looks like she’s about to put someone in a headlock. 

“Ah,” Helena replies, reassessing her thoughts about Myka for at least the sixth or seventh time. “Kenpo for me. A form of karate?”

“Oh, gotcha,” Myka says. “I was thinking about karate myself, but the Krav Maga classes fit my schedule better.”

They discuss the pros and cons of both fighting techniques on their way to the library, and then focus on Carl Friedrich Gauss and Emily Dickinson.

“Did you know,” Myka asks at one point, “that Emily Dickinson was very probably not straight?”

Helena’s eyebrows shoot up. 

Myka blushes. (It hasn’t lost its appeal.) “I thought you should know,” she explains, “after our lunch conversation.” She pulls up Google on the library laptop in front of them and types in a few keywords. “We don’t know for sure if she was lesbian or bi or what,” she goes on in a low voice, “but there are very strong indicators that she had a romantic relationship with her sister-in-law.” She turns the laptop so that Helena can read the page Myka has opened. 

“Fascinating.” Helena’s eyes glide over the lines. “I wonder how many others,” she adds. 

“How many other people she had a relationship with,” Myka asks, “or how many other people we don’t know about being queer?”

“The second,” Helena says. “The first, too, come to think of it, but the second more than that.” She sighs. “It’s so… _frustrating_.”

Myka nods. “Totally agree.” 

Her reaction gives Helena license to vent her frustration a little further. “Preposterous, too,” she says, trying to keep her voice low enough for library purposes. “They seriously want everybody to believe we didn’t exist throughout history?!” She purposefully doesn’t emphasize the pronoun, certain that Myka will pick up on it.

Myka, astute as she is, does. “We?” she asks, in a low voice and with a small, curious gleam in her eye. 

“Yeah, lesbo,” someone sneers behind the two of them. “What do you mean by ‘we’? Bering here is too frigid even for the dykes, you know.”

Myka’s eyes, in an instance, turn completely, scarily flat. “Walter,” she says as she turns, in a carefully neutral voice. “Polite as always.”

The boy behind them is in a wheelchair; Helena has seen him around the hallways and cafeteria. She knows that he’s a senior and that he wears a letter jacket, but she doesn’t share any classes with him, so that’s by and large the extent of her intel. Up close, his body looks quite athletic, and his eyes are cold. “Stuff it, Bering. Although, sorry, I forgot, you don’t do that kind of thing, do you.” His gaze travels across Helena in a way that leaves her feeling dirty. “Shame,” he says. “You’re pretty. You sure you’re queer?”

Helena grinds down on the gum between her teeth. She should have been more careful; this is _exactly_ what she doesn’t want, doesn’t need. She’s had enough of that to last her a lifetime. Her thoughts race for a moment, considering the circumstances and what else she knows about Walter – he hangs with Nate and some other boys from the football team at lunch and he owns an expensive-looking car; that’s about it. Myka doesn’t seem to like him, though, and at this point, that’s good enough for Helena. She gives Walter a smile that’s rather more of a baring of her teeth than anything else, and replies in syrupy tones, “What a fascinating question… Walter, is it? I haven’t been asked that since… you know what? I’ve _never_ been asked that. Goodness, just imagine. I suppose everyone else had the good manners not to.”

Walter’s eyes flick up at something behind the table, and grow apprehensive. “Whatever, dyke,” he scoffs, then turns his wheelchair on the spot and moves off. His motions are fluid; he’s used to the device. Helena doesn’t think further on it, but turns to look at whatever Walter’s just seen.

“Mrs. Lattimer,” Myka says with a small, relieved smile. 

“Hello, girls,” Mrs. Lattimer replies, staunchly ignoring Walter’s retreating figure. “Myka, can you come to the front desk for a moment?”

“Sure,” Myka says immediately. She turns to Helena. “Will you be alright?” She casts a glance in the direction of Walter’s exit.

“Of course,” Helena says with a smile that’s more reassuring than she really feels, but she can’t show nerves right now. She _will_ be alright; Walter wouldn’t be the first bully she’s been up against, even if that particular avenue of bullying has hit a bit too close to home. “Go; you work here after all.”

Myka shoots her a smile halfway between worried and relieved and heads after Mrs. Lattimer. 

Helena takes the laptop and moves to a spot at the table where she has a decent view of most of the library’s aisles, just in case someone else tries to sneak up. Then she pops in a new strip of gum; she needs the physical distraction of savaging it if she wants to keep her cool or, conversely, stay awake – now that the adrenaline rush is over, she feels tired all over again, though not as badly as she was last week, thankfully.

Nobody does approach her except Myka after ten minutes; Mrs. Lattimer wanted help with a large batch of returned books. As they resume their work, Helena thinks that Myka is a more than capable tutor; when she says so and Myka replies that she’s done this most of her life, Helena is not surprised. She tries very hard not to show how smitten she feels. Tries very hard not to _be_ smitten – she has no use for this. It is a bad idea.

Five o’clock arrives and they leave and head for the parking lot – Myka taking Helena home has become a staple, fortunately with no further need for Myka to wipe smeared mascara off Helena’s face. Or maybe that’s not all that fortunate; Helena can still call up the feeling of Myka’s hands on her face, their slight trembling, the little crease of sheer concentration between Myka’s eyebrows-

Helena needs to stop this. 

But oh, does she want it to go on. 

Myka stops dead in her tracks as the parking lot comes into view. “Ugh.”

“What’s wrong?”

Myka has turned on her heel and is pulling Helena along behind her, back towards the library building; she isn’t quite running, but with her legs being as long as they are, Helena has to half-jog to keep up.

“Myka, what’s wrong?”

They stop inside the library staircase. “That was Walter’s car back there,” Myka says, eyes dark with anger more than anxiety. “Plus at least one of his friends’ cars. Waiting for us, is my guess. I hope they didn’t see us.”

Helena grows cold. Before she can say anything, though, Myka goes on.

“Helena, can I… can I trust you?”

Helena stares at her. Myka’s eyes are apprehensive now; she’s let go of Helena’s hand and is worrying her fingers, shifting from foot to foot. Helena makes a snap decision. Between Walter and Myka, she’ll trust Myka anytime, and even if this is about more than Walter, or about something else than Walter, she thinks she knows Myka well enough by now to make this call: “Yes,” she says. 

Myka leads her up one more flight of stairs to a heavy steel door marked ‘Staff only’ and opens it with her library key. She pulls Helena through and locks it again. They’re standing in a corridor that runs the length of the building, and that’s saying something: the building houses the gym too. Helena can see the double doors of an elevator at the far end, and regular doors and walled-up doorways along the corridor to the left and the right. Myka heads towards one of the functioning doors and pulls Helena through that one, too. 

Helena feels a little bit worried right now. Myka is focused, flat-eyed, determined, and she’s navigating these unknown corridors and rooms with disconcerting ease. “Should _I_ be asking _you_ if I can trust you?” Helena tries to joke, but her voice is most definitely not calm enough for the quip to come out as unconcerned. 

Myka flashes her a preoccupied little frown that doesn’t help matters. “I’ll explain in a moment, I promise,” she says. 

The room they’re in is large; maybe a third of the building’s length? It’s difficult to say, with all the shelves and cupboards. General school storage, obviously; dusty, smelly, long-forgotten. There’s no air conditioning up here, and it shows. The sheer heat of Colorado in September is something that Helena’s having a hard time adapting to, and up here, it’s hitting her like a hammer, running down her throat and meeting the familiar queasiness coming the other way. She can feel herself wilting; Myka, for some reason, grabs a broomstick handle as they pass shelf after shelf full of old books, globes, dilapidated Bunsen burners and similar antiques.

Nobody would find a missing student in here. 

Helena dismisses the thought. Myka isn’t an axe-murderer – or broomstick handle murderer, if it comes to it. Helena’s ninety-nine percent sure of that. 

Myka stops in a spot that looks like any other, lifts her stick, and looks upwards. “Stand back a little,” she says, gesturing Helena towards the shelf they just passed. Then she pokes the stick at the ceiling until a part of it opens up and swings down. “Et voilà,” Myka says. She reaches for the edge of a contraption that’s coming down inside the hatch, and Helena sees that it’s a folding ladder that, when Myka extends it, leads up to what’s probably the building’s attic. “After you?” Myka says, and suddenly sounds nervous again. 

Helena gives her a long look, and then decides that broomstick murderers probably don’t look quite this anxious before they off you. She turns and climbs the ladder. 

And finds herself in the coziest little hide-away she could ever have imagined. 

“Welcome,” Myka says behind her, plopping her backpack onto the floor, “to… well, my attic. That’s what I call it, anyway.”

Helena slowly turns to take in the place. 

The attic also runs the length of the building; except for the beams that support the slanting ceiling at regular intervals, there are no walls in here. A few glassed roof hatches give the sun the chance to battle the gloom with dust-filled, angled columns of gold, but beyond the confines of those, with the help of age-darkened wooden beams and roofing, the dusk is winning. Against all reason, it’s a bit less stuffy up here. Not much, but any little bit helps. 

Right where Helena is standing is a little oasis of comfort, walled in to her right and in front of her by heavy, dark but faded curtains that hang down from one central hook and are draped over a rope slung at a right angle between a few of the support beams. When she turns, she can see more rope at overhead-height on the left and behind her, and more bunched-up cloth at the ends of the curtains; Helena wouldn’t be surprised if the little patch could be completely curtained off if the inhabitant felt like it. A futon couch has pride of place, framed by milk crate bookshelves stacked chest-high. Opposite it is an old student desk and chair, and a smaller shelf from actual wood that holds a few clothes and necessities. There’s a naked bulb hanging among the drapes overhead, and a dinged-up desk lamp next to the futon. 

There is a marked absence of murdered bodies or bloodstains on the curtains, as far as Helena can tell. 

There’s a click behind Helena, and she turns around. Myka holds a piece of rope in her hands; she has pulled up the ladder with it, and now she sits back, hands on thighs, kneeling next to the stick she used to open the hatch. “Okay, so, with this,” she holds up the rope, “you can close the hatch from up here, and if you take the stick up with you, no one can open the hatch from downstairs.” She frowns slightly and adds, “Well, without rigging up something, I guess. But still, they’d have to find stuff to do that, and know that there’s a hatch and where it is, right? Anyway, I just… I don’t want you to feel weird or unsafe or anything. I’m sure Walter can’t get in here; I mean there’s an elevator at the other end of the building, but he doesn’t have a key to that one, only the main building ones, and even if he did, he’d still have to know where the hatch is and how to get it open and all that, so…” Myka stops her rambling and shrugs a little embarrassedly. Then she clears her throat and goes on, pointing to one side of the attic, “Um, the windows over there look out over the quad; the ones on the other side face the football field and parking lot. We can go check if Walter’s still there in half an hour or so.” She fidgets again as she looks at Helena. “Anyway, um. Please don’t tell anyone about this. The only one who knows about it is me, and Pete, and now you.”

Helena stares right back. Of all the questions swirling through her mind, she asks the least important one. “Pete?”

“He helped me with the futon,” Myka explains. 

“Of course,” Helena says weakly. She looks around the place again, until her eyes come to rest on the light bulb. “May I?” she asks, nodding her chin at it. It’s nowhere near sunset, but _is_ getting a bit too dark in here to see Myka clearly.

“Oh,” Myka says, springing into action, “give me a moment.” She pulls Helena towards the futon and motions for her to sit down, then closes the curtains. It does create a… kind of tent, easily twelve by fifteen feet large, and it feels comfortable and comforting rather than, say, spooky or stuffy. As the last piece of fabric slides into place, it takes the last of the light with it. Helena hears Myka’s footsteps, though, and they don’t sound a bit hesitant; Myka knows where everything is, that much is certain. It’s oddly reassuring, but it also makes Helena pull her backpack she’d dropped on the floor back up onto her lap so as not to trip Myka in the darkness. Then the ceiling lightbulb springs into life, and Helena squints in its brightness. 

“Thank you,” she says. She’s feeling less unsteady by the minute; Myka isn’t going to murder her, she’s just hiding the two of them away, that’s all.

Myka hovers at the edge of the futon for a moment, then sits down next to Helena. She’s pushing her glasses up her nose again, and the eyes behind them are anxious. “Say something?”

Helena softly shakes her head, sliding her backpack on the floor again. Now that her nerves have calmed down, she can’t stop herself from smiling. “This is _brilliant_ ,” she says. “Like Bastian’s place in the Neverending Story, cranked up to eleven.” Her eyes roam the tent again and everything in it, and then land on Myka. “You did all of this yourself?” She might have to revise her opinion of the other girl yet again.

Myka nods. “Found my way up here second semester of freshman year,” she says. “Pete had been pestering me for months, wanting to know if my library key worked for the ‘Staff Only’ door. He argued that I _was_ staff so it would be okay. So one day I unlocked the door, opened it a couple inches, and then pulled it shut it again before he could go through; he pouted for _days_ that I didn’t let him in.” She smiles a small smile, reminiscent and slightly smug. “I always felt like exploring behind it, but I waited until he dropped the matter and found something else to be excited about. If I’d gone earlier, he’d have followed me and we both would’ve gotten in trouble; I didn’t want that, so I waited until I could go alone. Found most of this stuff down in storage,” she gestures around the room, “except this,” she pats the futon. “This, I found on the side of the road, in sophomore year. Had to tell Pete and ask his help getting it over here and up the ladder. He pouted for _weeks.”_ She grins and leans back a little, obviously reassured by Helena’s responding smile. “Barely anyone comes here,” she goes on. “To storage, I mean. Like, maybe once or twice per semester, that’s all. And me,” she adds with a shrug.

“And you,” Helena says. She feels light, like she’s flying, and she has no idea why. She feels a little bit like crying too, also without any clear idea of a reason, and that’s a bit more disconcerting. 

“And now you,” Myka repeats, and her voice and her eyes are very soft even if her glasses throw harsh shadows on her face in the illumination from the lightbulb overhead. 

“And now me,” Helena echoes her again. It’s inane, but she has no idea what else to say. She finds herself leaning forward, sees Myka’s eyes flicker down to her lips, leans in a bit more and kisses the other girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, chapter 4 and they kiss. Not a slow burn, no?


	5. Myka

Inviting Helena into what Myka thinks of as _her_ attic is a spur-of-the-moment decision at seeing Walter’s car in the parking lot, but it feels right. 

_Seeing_ Helena in her attic is… nerve-wracking and wonderful at the same time. Helena looks… appreciative? Surprised? Impressed? Nervous?

It’s hard to say, even after Myka turns the light on. 

It’s weird having someone sit on the futon with her. Pete was here a couple of times in the beginning, but after Myka flat-out forbade him to use any kind of ball or other sports equipment in this space, he stopped coming, calling her a Debbie Downer. It’s not his kind of thing to sit around and study or read (not that _she’s_ had much opportunity to do so last year, but still), and that’s okay. 

Myka finds herself hoping that this might be Helena’s kind of thing; the idea of having Helena sit on the futon with her more often than just this once is… nerve-wracking and wonderful at the same time. At least it’s reassuring that Helena referenced the Neverending Story; it’s what Myka thinks of too, when she thinks of her attic.

Myka’s been thinking all afternoon about what Helena might have meant with that ‘we’ when she spoke of queer people existing throughout history. 

She couldn’t very well ask after having cuffed Pete for the exact same question earlier, but she will admit to fishing a little, with her detour about Emily Dickinson. 

And now Helena is kissing her, and Myka’s thoughts are fusing, like the loudest tinnitus she’s ever had. 

The kiss seems to last a lifetime.

The kiss also seems over before it has even really begun. 

After a moment of hoping that it’ll begin again, Myka opens her eyes. 

Helena is staring at her. Then Helena’s eyes drop, and she flushes crimson. “Bollocks,” she mutters under her breath, then looks up again anxiously. “Myka, I’m so, _so_ sorry. I shouldn’t have. I-”

“No,” Myka says quickly, breathlessly, her voice much higher than usual, “it’s okay.” It’s more than okay, but her thoughts are still trying to sort out what happened, leaving her mouth kind of to its own devices.

And what happens when her mouth is kind of left to its own devices is that Myka leans forward and kisses Helena right back. 

And then she remembers that she has no idea what to do beyond ‘press lips on lips’, and withdraws in something quite close to panic. “I…”

“Myka,” Helena says, and her voice is much lower than usual and that is not _fair_. It is not fair that her saying ‘Myka’ like that makes fireworks go off in Myka’s insides. It is not fair that her face when she says ‘Myka’ is the most beautiful thing Myka has ever seen. 

It is not fair that Myka can’t really focus on either because she’s panicking. 

Helena is the most amazing girl she’s ever met; brilliant, erudite, _beautiful_. She could have her pick of anyone in this school but for some reason she’s… here? With Myka?

It doesn’t make _sense._

“I, um…” she begins again. Her thoughts are _useless_ at this point, and what comes out in the end is, “What… what _did_ you mean, earlier, when you said ‘we’?” She bites her tongue, but the question is out and she can’t take it back.

Helena looks confused for a long moment, then realization spreads across her face. “Are you asking, in fact, which team I’m on?”

Myka groans and hides her face in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s really none of my bu-”

“I’m bi,” Helena says, fast and forceful as if she’s pushing the words out, and Myka’s brain is overwhelmed again trying to process that. 

“Okay.” 

“‘Okay’?” Helena asks, eyebrows high on her forehead. _Her_ voice is higher now, high and thin. 

She sounds like _she’s_ panicking. Myka looks up and, yes, Helena’s eyes are wide and her breaths are shallow. Helena Grace Wells, the most amazing girl Myka has ever met, is panicking just like Myka was a moment ago. For some reason, that calms Myka right down. “Hey, um,” she says, as evenly as she’s able to, “hey, that’s alright. Yeah, it’s okay. It’s fine. I… I’m not… bothered, or anything, that we kissed, okay? I used to wonder if I was ace, or aro, you know,” she adds. She laughs, or tries to. “Or both. Well, that’s _that_ put to rest.”

“From what I understand,” Helena says, sounding like someone working hard at pulling herself together, “you can still be. Ace or aro, I mean. One kiss doesn’t change that.”

“It wasn’t one kiss,” Myka points out, “it was two.”

Helena bites her lips together, and there’s a spark of laughter back in her eyes. “Touché,” she says. 

And as if they’re on a see-saw, with only one of them being allowed to be the calm one, now Myka’s nerves return. “And, um,” Myka says, and stops. 

“Yes?” She’s tilting her head. _Helena_ is _tilting her head_ , and her hair _cascades_ across her shoulder like a, like a, like a _silk waterfall_ , and it is not _fair_ how beautiful that is.

“Um,” Myka says. “I, um.” She desperately wants to kiss Helena some more, but she’s frozen to the spot and even if she wasn’t, what do you even do, beyond ‘press lips on lips’?! Like, there’s tongue involved, she’s seen that in movies and on TV, but – how?

Helena is leaning in. Yep, definitely more put-together now, that’s for sure.

Myka’s eyes drop to Helena’s lips, like they did earlier – she can’t help herself, it’s just-

Helena is kissing her again, and that- that _is_ a _tongue_ , sliding ever so gently across Myka’s upper lip, and Myka just-

Her spine softens and she sinks into Helena, unable to sit up straight any longer, as if her whole being is pulled into this person who’s kissing her; her hands come up but don’t know where to land and-

And Helena’s lips (and tongue) are gone again. 

They tasted minty, of chewing gum, and now they’re gone.

“Myka, breathe.” There is laughter in those words, but it’s gentle. 

Myka sucks in a breath obediently. 

God, it’s hot up here.

Her ears are still ringing. 

She opens her eyes, and there is Helena, and there’s laughter in those eyes, but it’s gentle. 

“Fuck,” Myka breathes reverentially. 

Helena raises one truly wicked eyebrow. “Is that a reaction or a request?” 

“I… what?” Myka’s brain is refusing to process anything at this point. “I… I’ve never… _Jesus.”_

Helena’s second eyebrow joins the first. “You’ve never kissed a girl?” 

“I’ve never kissed _anyone_ ,” Myka admits. Her thoughts seem to be catching on, finally.

Helena blinks. “Oh,” she says after a moment. Her face lightens with understanding, and she nods. “Ace, or aro.” Then she smiles. “This was your first kiss?” 

“Technica-,”

“Oh, shut up,” Helena laughs, catches Myka’s face in both hands, and pulls her in for another kiss.

 _Technically_ , the fourth.

The spine-melting thing is happening again, and Helena’s mint-flavored tongue makes a glorious comeback on Myka’s upper lip, and Myka makes a noise she’s never made before, and Helena’s hands on her cheeks tighten in response and pull her closer, and Myka thinks perhaps it’s a good idea to put _her_ hands on Helena’s waist maybe just to catch herself, and then realizes they’re freaking well _kissing with tongue_ , Helena’s waist is totally an okay place to put her hands. 

Right?

Before she can think better, she does, and Helena scoots closer and their two pairs of legs are at a really, really weird angle and her glasses are being knocked askew but Myka doesn’t care because Helena’s tongue is pushing a little now, and that’s probably where open-mouthed kissing starts, so Myka obliges and-

Holy-

Myka holds on for dear life. Something is pooling inside her, an ache that wants to pull her closer into Helena, close enough to touch everywhere and feel everything. Her hands move of their own accord, around Helena’s waist and up her back a little and then she _pulls_ , and Helena makes a low sound in her throat that hums through her tongue and lips and through Myka’s tongue and lips right towards the ache in her center and Myka has to stop, for air if nothing else. 

She’s breathing hard; her heart is beating in her throat, and she _wants_. She’s not sure what, except ‘more’. Whatever this is, she wants; the ache inside her yearns for it.

This _is_ putting the whole ace and aro thing to rest, she’s quite sure of it. Like, she feels _anything_ but asexual at this point, and romantically speaking-

Well, okay, she doesn’t really want to think too much about that right now.

When she opens her eyes, Helena is hovering close. Helena must have just opened her own eyes too; her pupils are blown wide, almost drowning the brown of her irises. Helena is breathing hard as well, and her mouth still hangs open. Her lips are trembling, and then she snaps them shut, and when Myka looks back up, trepidation is back in Helena’s eyes.

Definitely a nerves see-saw. Helena is jumpy again, and Myka is calm – well, apart from the ache that still urges her to go in for another kiss, which is a bit disconcerting, honestly, but she has a grip on it. Right. She does. Because Helena is nervous now; Myka has to have a grip on things. But… Helena being this nervous has to mean she’s into Myka. Right? Myka still doesn’t really know what exactly this is, but that’s what that means, yes? 

“Is this… was this alright?” Helena asks, and her voice trembles too.

“Yeah,” Myka says quickly, “yeah, of course.” 

“Not too much?”

And there it is. Maybe… maybe, yeah. “Maybe a little.” Myka knows she’s blushing again. She keeps doing that around Helena, and it’s annoying. She runs a hand across her hair and rubs the back of her neck with a short, self-deprecating grimace. “I… have no idea what I’m doing. Like, full disclosure? I’ve never done anything with anyone, nor was I ever interested, nor have I ever paid much attention to the whole dating thing. You might have heard them call me Ice Queen? That’s… that’s why. Just… never my thing, so. Um.” She gives Helena an apologetic smile, or tries at least. “Totally lost without a map here. Please don’t-” she has no idea how to finish this sentence. There are a lot of things that she doesn’t want Helena to do: laugh, leave, take advantage, but how to express them without sounding weird?

Helena gives her a slightly strained smile in return. “Can’t say that my track record is much better,” she says. “When it comes to dating, at any rate,” she amends. “I’ve… done the deed a few times, but… those were just hook-ups.” She sits back further, suddenly very far away. “They do say that parental relationships are a model for how children will handle theirs, and if that’s true, well.” A pained grimace flickers over her face. 

“They do also say that anyone can overcome their conditioning,” Myka points out, following that line of reasoning. “Which is something to hope for, because let’s face it, my parents aren’t great role models either.”

Helena nods. “I have a much better sense of what I don’t want in a relationship than what I do want,” she replies, although she sounds almost detached. 

“Yeah, I get that.”

The see-saw is clearly hanging in the balance now, with both of them slightly worried. There’s an uneasy silence for a while; Myka breaks it first. “Hang on.” She can’t really believe- “Did you… are we talking about… a relationship? I’m not… I’m not saying one way or the other is better or worse,” she adds quickly. “I just… I mean… What _are_ we talking about?”

Helena runs an erratic hand through her hair. “I… I don’t… know?” She’s silent for a moment, looking at Myka as if waiting for her to say something, but Myka has zero idea what to say, so she’s silent too. Helena nibbles on her chewing gum between her front teeth, and then says, as if she’s come to a decision, “Whatever we’re both comfortable with, I’d say? If you’re willing?”

Myka quickly nods. Willing is definitely something she is. It is _embarrassing_ how willing she feels right now. “Yeah,” she says. It comes out scratchy, and she clears her throat. “Yeah, I… I’d like…” And that’s the thing: she doesn’t really know what she would like. She half wants to say ‘all of this’, but that’d be a bit too far too fast, right? She clears her throat again. “W-what would _you_ be comfortable with?”

“Kissing you,” Helena says so fast that she can’t really have thought about it. And that’s a good sign, right? “Spending time together, if you want,” Helena adds with a quick, tremulous smile that’s gone as fast as it came, because then she goes on, “but I’m not… I don’t want people to know. Especially considering this afternoon. I…” her face falls and she looks away. “I can’t do that.”

Myka swallows. “I understand,” she says, and still can’t keep her disappointment out of her voice. She doesn’t care, is what she wants to say. Let them talk; let them sneer, is what she wants to say. But if Helena isn’t comfortable with that- 

“Myka, please,” Helena says, eyes still averted. “I’m… I’m the new kid. _You_ , you have your place here. A place you’ve made for yourself, a place that’s yours, that everybody knows and respects. I don’t have that; any place I have here I have because people shuffled aside to fit me in at the beginning of the month. They’ve been asked to give up a bit of their space for me, and they’re okay with that for now, but that can shift.”

Myka is confused. “Helena, what-”

“This is the eighth time I’ve been the new kid in school,” Helena says, with a small, angry furrow between her brows and her eyes dark and far away. “I know how this goes. I don’t have a hope in hell against anyone who’s been here their whole lives, if they want to make my life miserable for some reason.”

“I’d _never_ do that,” Myka protests.

“I know,” Helena says, giving Myka another one of those quick smiles. Then her gaze drops again, and she starts picking at the futon’s seam. “But others might. And I know some people don’t care about other people’s opinions, and I guess I could try and say I don’t care either, seeing as I’m only here for the year, but the year has just started, and I…” she shakes her head. “I can’t.”

Myka tries to parse all that. “Eight times?”

Helena shrugs. “My parents moved around a lot.”

Myka stares at her. “That… that sucks. I’m sorry.”

Helena shrugs again, tugging out a loose thread and twirling it between her fingers. “I’m used to it.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Myka says firmly. She’s used to how her dad treats her, but that doesn’t make that better either. Moving that often… “Is that why you don’t really talk about your friends?” she asks and then bites her tongue. “Sorry, that was insen-”

Helena waves her concern away. “Full disclosure,” she echoes Myka’s earlier words. “I don’t really have any, unsurprisingly.” She looks as though she wants to say some more, but then slumps back against the futon’s backrest, crossing her arms and chomping down on her gum ferociously. 

“Well, that’s no longer true, anyway,” Myka says, upping her ‘firmly’ to ‘decisively’. “You’re part of us now. Pete, Steve, Leena, me. Claud and Josh. You do have a place here. I mean. If you want to.”

Helena presses her lips together, hard enough to whiten them. Swallows just as hard, once, twice. “Thank you,” she says then, and her voice is still rough despite all the swallowing. 

“And, um… if you want to be just friends with me, that’s fine,” Myka adds, because that’s something that people say in these circumstances, right? It _is_ fine; in a way, anyway. Like, she doesn’t want to _not_ kiss Helena anymore, but if Helena can’t handle that, then they’ll find a way, right? Isn’t that how it goes? Myka has not wanted to kiss anyone for seventeen years, she can go back to that again. 

Even as she lays this argument out inside her own head, she knows how ridiculously wrong it is. It’s like a seal that has been broken open, a fire that’s been kindled. You can’t seal it up again; you can’t unburn it. 

But if that’s what Helena wants, what she needs-

Helena swallows again. Slowly, she uncrosses her arms; slowly, she reaches out a hand, palm up. 

Myka puts hers in it, equally slowly. She has no idea what this means, but if it’s something Helena wants or needs, she can do that. And as she does, her view of Helena shifts: yes, Helena still is beautiful, still is brilliant and well-read and all that, but she’s also lonely, and nervous, and hurting. And she’s reaching out. Helena Wells, who could have her pick of anyone in this school, has picked Myka, has put her trust in her – and that at least makes sense: Myka knows she’s trustworthy. People have told her often enough; she has _worked_ for it. If that’s what Helena is looking for, then yeah, it makes sense that she’d choose Myka. Myka can be trustworthy for her.

Helena interlaces their fingers; her hands are a bit smaller than Myka’s; her wrists are tiny, fragile as a bird’s leg. Can a person do karate with wrists like this?

It’s weird, sometimes, what Myka’s brain will observe, or make of its observations.

Pete would have probably compared Helena’s wrist to a sub-par chicken wing. 

Pete!

“I…” Myka clears her throat. “Can I talk about this with Pete? I’ll swear him to silence, or if you want to I’ll make sure he doesn’t catch on that it’s you, but I need to…”

“You need to talk with someone about this,” Helena states, and it’s not a question. 

Myka nods. “I think I might burst if I don’t.” She’s only half joking. A small smile is her reward, but again it passes quickly. Why is Helena so… sad? Nervous? “Is something wrong?”

Helena looks up at her then, and for a moment, her eyes are full of longing. Need, want, whatever you want to call it, it all is in that gaze, and then eyelids slowly slide shut, and a face composes itself with effort. 

Myka wonders what kind of longing it was. “Helena?”

Helena clears her throat and turns her face away before opening her eyes again. “I think we’re both best served if we… take this slow,” she says, sounding weirdly detached. Is this something else she needs, maybe? Detachment? “Do talk to Pete,” she goes on across Myka’s thoughts. “I think that’s a good idea. Ask me anything you need to; whatever helps you make sense of this. I mean…” she gives Myka another one of those short, sad smiles, “we do have all year, don’t we. No need to rush. The last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable. Or…” she drops her gaze again, and adds quietly, “or botch this.”

“Yeah, okay,” Myka says. She’s feeling relieved. This is a go, isn’t it? Or is it? “So…” she begins hesitantly. Her heart is beating in her throat, and she swallows it down with effort. “So, this ‘this’ you’re talking about… is not a ‘let’s just stay friends’ scenario. Right?” 

Helena’s smile is tiny, but at least this one’s not sad, and it lasts longer. The teasing twinkle is back in her eyes, even. “Are you asking me to spell it out to you, Miss Bering?”

The callback to the conversation with Pete this morning almost makes Myka choke. Then she laughs. “Wow.” She grins at Helena, happy that the other girl has overcome her nerves at least for long enough to make a joke. “Well, I’m not gonna be a Benedick to your Beatrice; nobody needs to trick me into-” she bites her tongue. Whatever this ‘this’ is, she doesn’t know well enough to put a word to it. “This,” she finishes instead, waggling her eyebrows exaggeratedly for comedic effect. If Pete can ham, so can she. Helena snorts, but her smile grows, and that’s all Myka wants. “But I won’t be a Claudio either,” she goes on with a frown, “nor a Hero. _That_ whole mess isn’t anything I’d want for us.”

“Romeo and Juliet?” Helena suggests, twinkle now firmly established. 

They look at each other for a beat, then shake their heads at the same time. “No,” they both say in unison. “Worse mess,” Myka adds, and “Far too much drama,” Helena agrees.

“I guess then it’ll simply be Wells and Bering then, solving this puzzle one day at a time.” Even though Helena says this lightly, her eyes are anything but. They are riveted to Myka’s, searching, questioning, skittish. Maybe it’s the whole see-saw thing again, but Myka doesn’t want it to be. She wants both of them to not be nervous anymore. 

So she squeezes Helena’s hands and tries to make her smile as reassuring as she can. However, there’s one thing she needs to comment on. “Bering and Wells,” she says. “Trochee plus iamb sounds better than two trochees. More elegant. Plus, alphabetical order.” 

Helena raises her eyebrows and tilts her head almost as if in challenge, but her eyes are calmer now, and that’s all Myka wants. 

Myka smiles at her again, then at their still entwined hands. Then her gaze falls to her wristwatch, and suddenly she feels cold in this baking attic. “Oh, shoot,” she says. “Do you have a curfew?”

“What time is it?” Helena looks alarmed now too. 

“Almost six.”

Helena releases her breath. “That’s alright,” she says. “Dinner is at seven, and Mrs. Frederic wants me to notify her by half past six if I won’t make it. She talked to me about this,” she adds with a blush, “after… you know. That day in the library. It’s not even really a curfew; she says at almost eighteen it’s silly to give me one. She says she just wants to know what my plans are.”

“Oh. That’s… nice.” 

Most of the relaxation leaves Helena’s shoulder again. “Your parents have stricter rules?”

“Unless otherwise agreed, come straight home on a weeknight, or call if you can’t,” Myka spools off. “I’ll, um, do that real quick, okay? Call them, I mean.”

“Tell them I asked you to go clothes shopping with me,” Helena suggests.

Myka snorts a laugh. “Yeah, no, that won’t work. I _hate_ shopping for clothes, and my parents know it.”

“Tell them I forced you to go clothes shopping with me?” Helena amends with a hint of her usual smirk. 

“I…” Myka can feel the blood rushing into her cheeks. “I’m not a good liar,” she says. “I’ll, uh… I’ll come up with something on the way to the car. Let’s see if Walter’s gone.” She stands up, and her arm stretches out and down – she won’t let go of Helena until Helena does. 

Helena keeps hold of her hand until they leave the building.


	6. Myka

They do go shopping for clothes, that Sunday evening after Myka is done with work. 

With Helena, Myka doesn’t hate it. Every store is new for Helena, and the dark-haired girl has no compunction whatsoever in picking from the women’s _and_ the men’s section, even the business section for both. The first store Myka takes her to, Helena dismisses after a matter of minutes, proclaiming the quality of the clothes there as ‘too shoddy by half’ and insisting Myka take her somewhere where she can buy clothes that will last more than a season. 

It’s not really the kind of store Myka frequents; it’s not been all that long since she grew too fast to be able to wear clothes more than one year, two if she was lucky. And the kind of store Helena is looking for is… not really where Myka shops. Still, she knows them, and watching Helena meander confidently through the upscale clothes racks makes her feel a bit less like an intruder on this expensive turf. She wonders how rich Helena’s family is; how much money Helena has at her disposal to look at a shirt’s label that says forty-nine ninety-nine and not put it back or even flinch. 

She can’t deny that Helena in a fifty-dollar shirt looks stunning, though.

Helena also looks… more relaxed than Myka has ever seen her in school. Like, okay, Helena has pale skin, but today, there’s a bit of color in her cheeks that Myka has never seen before, and it makes her wonder just how nervous Helena has been the other times Myka’s seen her. 

Eight times the new kid, though. That probably has something to do with it. Myka can’t even begin to imagine how exhausting that had to be. She’d much rather focus on how Helena seems more at ease here and now.

No, Myka doesn’t hate clothes shopping with Helena – but it’s difficult. She now understands about butterflies in stomachs, she understands about sexual attraction and arousal, and she understands that slipping into someone’s changing cubicle to make out with them is frowned upon. 

Also, they’re taking it slow. One day at a time. That has to mean no making out in changing cubicles, no matter how distracting the thought of Helena taking off her clothes is.

Definitely not ace. Myka shakes her head at herself every time she remembers thinking this of herself. Granted, it was a valid hypothesis based on observations until then, but the observations have _for sure_ changed, and so the hypothesis needs to change too. Has changed. 

Myka thinks she has Jane Lattimer to thank for how cool she is with this development, and with the suddenness of it. From kindergarten onwards, long before she was Myka’s homeroom teacher or boss in the library, Jane was the mom of Myka’s best friend, always around whenever Myka was at Pete’s place or they were doing something together somewhere. And from exactly this early on, Pete’s mom has always encouraged Myka to be exactly who she is, as opposed to Warren Bering, who has this idea of his daughter in his head and would like nothing better than to press Myka into it and chop off anything that doesn’t fit. 

Myka has no idea how to explain having a crush on a girl to her father. He’d seemed happy about her not having a crush on _anyone_ and focusing on her academics – of course he would be. He’d be the kind of dad to force the shovel talk on any boy who so much as breathed an interest in Myka. But a girl?

Definitely a beneficial side effect about taking things slow: she doesn’t have to worry, yet anyway, about how to explain this to him. It’s okay to push this thought away for now, and focus on being with Helena. Focus on admiring how amazing Helena looks in the clothes she’s picking out; fitted slacks and button-up shirts and _vests_ , much like what she wears in school (and god, does she look good in school). Helena has a knack with clothes, in a way Myka feels very keenly that she herself hasn’t. 

When, at long last, Myka says so, Helena’s eyes take on the gleam of challenge. Then, with barely more than a perfunctory ‘May I?’, Helena begins picking out clothes for Myka to try on. 

And Myka doesn’t hate the trying on (and secretly wonders if Helena feels the same outside the cubicle now as she, Myka, felt ten minutes ago), and doesn’t hate the clothes. 

Sure, they’re way out of her comfort zone – button-ups and vests, because Helena wants to see how Myka looks in them, and a summer dress and a _pantsuit_ – and completely beyond what she could ever hope to afford, but Helena’s eyes are shining, her whole face is _beaming_ every time Myka shows off a new outfit, and maybe these outfits really do look good on her? 

“Helena, this is great, and fun and everything, but I can’t get these,” Myka says reluctantly, finally, looking at the ‘Myka’ pile that is almost larger than the ‘Helena’ pile by now. “I… I, uh, spent my clothes budget during the summer sales.”

Helena takes a breath as if to say something, then clamps her lips together and nods. The shine is draining from her eyes, and Myka laments its leaving and that it was her words that brought it about. Then Helena tugs one item out of Myka’s pile; a blue button-up that is, thankfully, a good bit less than fifty bucks. “Can I at least get you this?” she asks. “As a thank-you gift for indulging me and driving me around and all that?” She looks around – nobody’s in the changing area with them – leans a little closer and adds, under her breath, “And because you looked incredible in it?”

Myka’s blood rushes to her head. She sucks in her lips to keep from squeaking, and nods – what else can she do?

Helena beams again. “Aces!” 

As they pass the food court on their way out to the parking lot, Myka’s stomach growls. She’s gone without lunch; it happens when she’s staffing the store by herself. Her father is away for an estate sale – old, valuable books are all that keeps the bookstore afloat, really, if he doesn’t calculate in the time he spends on the road getting old, valuable books. And with Myka behind the counter, he doesn’t have to. 

Lunch, he tells her, is a small price to pay for their family’s financial stability. 

“Hungry?” Helena asks on cue.

Myka fidgets. If she says yes, Helena might offer to take her for dinner, and with the shirt already in the picture, that’d be really too much money spent on her. Before she can find words to put around that, though, Helena goes on. 

“Mrs. Frederic said that if we’re done before seven, I can invite you over to dinner.”

Myka goggles. Dinner with Mrs. Frederic?! The idea is… frightening. For starters, principals don’t eat. Surely Mrs. F is beyond such human things. She’s a… figure of authority, halfway in the realm of the mystical, the way she can just appear out of nowhere and know exactly what you’re thinking. 

Myka has been a guest in her house exactly once, and that was at Leena’s birthday party in freshman year, and Mrs. Frederic hadn’t even made an appearance, and _still_ everyone had been on their best (very stiff) behavior. Since then, Leena has had her birthday parties in other places. 

And dinner means that Mrs. F will be at the table with them. Right? It has to.

So, yeah, the prospect is daunting to say the least, but here’s Helena, looking hopeful. And dinner with Mrs. Frederic means that Helena isn’t spending even more money on Myka.

So Myka gives herself a push and nods, and Helena beams again, and Myka thinks that there isn’t much she wouldn’t do to make Helena’s face light up like that.

Half an hour later, Myka is still not over how freaky it is to see Mrs. Frederic not only eat, but joke. _Laugh_. Out _loud_.

To hear her called ‘Auntie’ or ‘Irene’ by Leena.

Mrs. Frederic has always been ‘Mrs. Frederic’ or ‘the principal’; it is well-nigh _inconceivable_ that someone might feel familiar enough to call her ‘Auntie’, but there you are. 

“You okay?” Leena asks as she, Helena and Myka head upstairs to Helena’s room. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so quiet.”

“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” Myka says quickly. She’s saved from having to say more when she enters Helena’s room. “Whoa,” she blurts out. 

Helena turns to her with a quizzical look on her face. 

Myka blushes. “It’s, uh, nice,” she says, and bites her tongue again. Really, really clever. Erudite. ‘Nice’. Christ. 

“It’s a guest room,” Leena says, throwing a quick, understanding grin at Myka. “H.G., I keep telling you, decorate! Put up a few posters, a picture or two. Put novels on the shelves, not just your textbooks. Make it yours; you’ll be here for a while!” 

Helena shrugs. “Didn’t bring any, did I,” she says. “And there are other things I’d rather spend my money on.” She nods at her shopping haul. Like Myka did earlier, Leena does a double take at its size; like she did to Myka earlier, Helena explains to Leena that she wasn’t sure what the dress code was at Lincoln High, and since she started out in slacks and a button-up, she now feels she needs to stick with it even if most people dress simply in jeans and tees.

The room is indeed pretty sparse, but, yeah, Myka can understand not bringing stuff like pictures or novels on an exchange year, or spending your money on them when you need to buy clothes. Still, though, seeing this place drives home how out of place Helena is here. _Just like she said_ , Myka’s memory reminds her. 

“So then let’s _take_ pictures, get them printed out, put them up,” Leena insists. “Go to the comic shop, get a Doctor Who poster or two. Just…” she shakes her head. “Doesn’t it feel weird, to be in a place that has nothing of you?”

Helena shrugs again and changes the topic, to a culinary supplies store that she has seen along the way, that has a sale Leena might be interested in. 

Myka, for her part, knows what she’s bringing to school tomorrow. 

Leena excuses herself after a while; she has a video call set up with someone halfway across the world, about the best way to make macaroons. Leena is really serious about her home ec elective, Myka knows, apparently to the point of trying to speak to an actual French person. 

“So, um,” Myka asks Helena after a too-long moment, “do you like Doctor Who, then?”

Helena does. And Star Trek. _And_ Star Wars. They both agree that you can very much like both indeed, and spend the next hour or so discussing favorite characters, episodes, story arcs, faces glowing and eyes bright until Myka glances at her watch and realizes she really has to head home. 

Helena walks her to the front door. “Thank you, Myka,” she says. “I had a brilliant day today.” She bites her lip for a moment, checks that they’re unobserved, then takes a deep breath and adds, “Could I kiss your cheek? Would that be alright?”

“Yes,” Myka, who’s been pondering how best to say ‘see you in school tomorrow’, replies, immediately and without in any way thinking about the matter. 

Helena’s lips are so soft on her cheek. They linger for entirely not long enough.

It isn’t until Myka is two blocks away – there’s a big palm in a flower planter on a corner that’s becoming kind of a marker – that she touches her hand to her the spot Helena kissed. 

So soft.

-_-_-

Myka walks into school the next day with a cardboard poster tube wedged under her arm. Helena isn’t there yet, so Myka can pull Steve aside, who works at one of the theaters in town, and talk to him about her plan. He promises her to see what he can do. 

Helena eyes the tube suspiciously when Myka gives it to her, but her face brightens up when she sees what’s inside. 

“Sometimes publishing houses send promotional material with their books,” Myka explains. “I mean we don’t stock science fiction and fantasy-,” Steve boos softly; he’s heard this before. Myka rolls her eyes at him in agreement and goes on, “-but not all publishing houses care; they just send the promo stuff for everything over anyway, no matter which genre. My dad…” she sets her jaw the way she always does when she thinks of this, “throws the sci-fi stuff out as soon as he sees it, but sometimes I get to the box before he does and can go through it, keep stuff that I like.” She refrains from mentioning that she’s spent the rest of last night looking through her stash for the right ones. “I hope you like His Dark Materials,” she finishes. 

“Are you joking?” Helena looks more animated than Myka has ever seen her in school. “I love the series! These are brilliant!” 

Leena joins the conversation at this point, and the four of them discuss which form their daemons might take until Pete arrives a minute before the bell. 

When Myka meets Helena’s eyes in the hubbub of all of them settling down for homeroom, she sees her mouth a ‘thank you’ and feels warmth spread through her every limb again. Not the same warmth she’s felt while they were kissing in the attic – this one is softer, happier; less of a fire and more of a glow. 

That afternoon, she and Pete are walking to the school gym when she pulls him aside. “I need to tell you something,” she says. “And you can’t tell anyone else, you need to promise me that.”

“What,” he counters, “that you got the hots for H.G.?”

She gapes at him.

He grins back. “Mykes, I’ve known you how long?”

It’s a rhetorical question, so she just gives him a look. 

“That’s right,” he nods, “and that’s why the Petemeister notices these things.”

“D’you think anyone else-?”

Pete scoffs. “Psshh. Nah. They all got you down as ‘not interested in anyone anyway’, so they’re not looking for that twinkle in your eye.” He makes tiny sprinkling gestures next to her eyes and she swats his fingers away. “And yeah, I promise. My lips are sealed. Now, gurl,” he wags his head and leans closer, “does she know?” 

Myka nods. And blushes. 

His grin grows. “Aww man, dude. Did you guys-” he purses his lips and makes kissy sounds. 

Myka nods again, and blushes harder. 

He whistles and cuffs her shoulder. “Gooooo _Myka!”_

His easy acceptance is amazing. “The thing is, though,” Myka says, because as nice as his acceptance is, _this_ is what she needs to talk with him about, “that this is so new, you know? I mean I’ve never dated anyone. Never even had a crush on anyone. I… Pete, I don’t really know what to do?”

He stares at her for a moment, and then the most incredulously happy smile spreads across his face. “Are you, Myka Bering, asking me, Pete Lattimer, for _dating advice?”_

She rolls her eyes. 

He puffs out his chest. “My Mykes, you have come to the right man.” Myka is beginning to wonder; it’s not like he has much of a track record himself, but he’s already going on. “I mean you’re over the first hurdle already, and the second one, _and_ the third – you told her _and_ she likes you back-” he stops himself with an almost audible record scratch. “She does, doesn’t she?”

“I… I guess? I think so, yeah?” Myka’s cheeks are for real burning at this point, but she can’t suppress a smile, nor stop it from growing across her whole face.

“Aww man!” Pete beams right back at her. “ _And_ you guys kissed! That’s, like, halfway to the altar, am I right? Or whatever your finish line is,” he adds.

“I don’t _know_ , Pete.” Myka tries to keep her voice down. Tries not to panic. Why the hell does he need to bring _altars_ into this?!

“Gotcha,” he nods. “You don’t have to, you know. It’s totally just as cool to take this day-by-day, see how it pans out.”

She sets her chin. That’s one of the things she wants to talk with him about. “You know that’s not my thing.” Yes, okay, so she’d said yes to Helena’s suggestion of one day at a time. But… it _really_ is not her thing, to not have a plan. Or at least an idea. Anything, really.

“Well, yeah,” Pete shrugs, “but what’s the alternative? Map out how the year’s gonna go, with color-coding and everything?”

She’s itching to say ‘yes’, but she knows that that’s not going to work. Yes, she has a plan for this year, and yes it’s color-coded (blue for early-decision prep, green for regular decision, red for deadlines), but it’s just for school stuff. Even _she_ knows you can’t plan-

Whatever this is. 

Plus, it’s too painful to think that Helena is only here for a year. Not even – just for the school year. Nine months, that’s all. 

“Isn’t there something between this and that?” she asks plaintively.

“Well, yeah,” Pete says and sucks at his teeth, “there’s this thing the kids do these days. It’s called ‘dating’.” He ducks as she swats at his head. “Seriously, though. Have you considered going on a date with her?” 

“Dunno if it counts, but I went clothes shopping with her yesterday and we had dinner at her home. Well. At Mrs. Frederic’s home, I mean.”

Pete’s eyes grow round. “Mrs. Frederic _eats?_ Did you actually _see_ her _eat?_ Like, put food in her mouth, chew, swallow?”

Myka grits her teeth. “Can we please focus?” 

“Okay, okay.” Pete sighs. “So, an afternoon at the mall and dinner in a kinda sorta ‘meet the parents’ situation counts as a date in _my_ book.”

“I don’t think she’s related to Mrs. F,” Myka says skeptically. 

“Psshh, living in her house is close enough, I say,” Pete reasons. “Anyway, regardless, just ask her out again and don’t worry if that is the second date or the first.” He waves his hand in a grand gesture. “People set too much store by that anyway. Besides, you did already kiss, so who’s counting?”

His delivery makes her laugh. And then she remembers the way she teased Helena about counting their kisses, and what came after, and stops laughing so fast she almost chokes. “I just… I don’t want to mess this up, Pete. And I have, like, zero clue and zero context.” And in the end, that’s what makes her most nervous about this. She truly does feel lost, and none of the available maps ever fitted her before, so she doesn’t know which one to pick now.

“Does she, that you know of?” he asks. “Like, can you follow her lead?”

Myka crosses her arms and stares at her feet. “I’m not sure. She, uh… she hinted at stuff. I got… the impression that it didn’t go well, but I don’t know for sure.”

“Well, that’s the second date talking point taken care of,” Pete says with a grin and a shrug. 

Myka’s head comes up. “For real?” It seems a little too much too soon, but if he says so-

“Heck no,” he backtracks, hands up.

“ _Pete!”_ She smacks his arm and keeps doing it to underline her words. “I _need_ you,” smack, “to give me,” smack, “ _reliable,”_ extra hard smack, “advice,” smack, “okay?” And that last word comes out uncomfortably close to a whine. 

His face softens immediately. “Hey, Mykes, I’m sorry. I didn’t… you know, you’re right. I’m sorry. I will, from now on. I promise.”

“Thank you.” She sighs, and there’s a little shudder in it. 

“Hey _hey_ hey,” he says, nudging her shoulder. “There’s one thing you can focus on, okay? She likes you.”

“Are you sure?” She looks up at him for confirmation.

“Well, she did kiss you. That’s usually a solid clue. And I’ll keep an eye on her from now on, see if I can catch her mooning over you.”

Myka’s thoughts instantly go wild. “You mean she hasn’t yet?”

“No,” Pete says patiently, “I mean _I_ haven’t _looked_ yet. She might have been and I haven’t caught it. I mean, I was kind of hoping I’d be catching her mooning over me, but,” he shrugs, “plenty of moms have plenty of pretty daughters, I guess. Ooh, say _that_ three times fast.”

“Thanks, Pete.” On impulse, Myka hugs him. She isn’t a hugger, typically, but she’s feeling shaken up, and he’s solid in more ways than one. 

He squeezes her to him – he gives good hugs, Pete Lattimer does, and at least this is before wrestling and not after, when walking towards the same parking lot is noxious, much less any actual physical contact. 

“Hey, you’re still my Mykes,” he says with a shrug as they let go of each other. “And who cares if this the first time ever for you. You’re super smart; you’ll figure it out. So it didn’t happen before; so what? So it’s a girl; again I say: so what? I don’t mind; you already know Steve and Josh won’t mind; I doubt Leena or Claudia will.”

“Pete, you promised,” Myka reminds him. “No talking with anyone.”

He nods very emphatically. “I did, and I remember what Steve said about outing. Don’t worry; I’m not gonna. Scout’s honor.” 

“I’ll tell them eventually, just… just not now, okay?” She bites her lip and sighs. “Also, my parents will absolutely mind.”

“Your father,” Pete says with a level look, “would mind even if you brought home Captain America.” He blows a raspberry. Then his face softens again. “I’m pretty sure your mom is going to be chill with it, though. She knew about Steve and Josh and didn’t freak out, right?”

“Well, no, but neither Steve nor Josh were her actual child.”

“I’m pretty sure that as long as you’re happy, she’ll be okay. Sometimes people surprise you, you know?”

“Oh, I’m surprising myself like whoa right now,” Myka dry-pans. 

He laughs once, then turns a gaze on her so intense that he has to be channeling his mom. “That you are crushing on someone in general, or that it’s a girl?”

Myka sighs. “Both?” She scuffs the toes of her shoes on the floor. “Crushing on someone in general more though. I mean, sure, okay, I’m seventeen, things still change, I know, I know. But it’s one thing to know that in theory, and another thing to have it happen to you. I guess I had accepted it, you know? That I wasn’t really into all of this. And now suddenly I am, and it’s… weird? But also not? And… and yeah, it’s a girl? Which… I mean it’s not a bad thing, I know, just… it’s just something else I’d never thought about before. You know?”

“Well, she is hot,” Pete says. “So not _that_ big of a surprise, right?”

Myka snorts. “Thanks for trying, Pete, but I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“I guess not.” Pete gives a sigh too, and then nudges her shoulder again. “But you’re not freaking out, right? I’ve seen you freak out, and this isn’t it, right?”

“No,” Myka exhales, “no, not freaking out. Just… thinking.”

“Okay, _yes,”_ Pete says quickly, hands stretched out towards her palms down, “look, I know that that’s your thing, Mykes, but… Okay, so here’s a piece of advice, alright?” He looks at her very seriously. “Don’t overthink it. And I mean that. And hey _hey_ hey, I don’t mean it in a hur-hur-caveman, let-your-naughty-bits-do-the-thinking way, okay? Just… just go with what feels right, in your gut, and with what H.G.’s okay with too. You like her and she likes you; at this point that’s all you need to know, you know?” 

Myka presses her lips together; she feels like crying all of a sudden. She just nods.

“And anytime you need me,” Pete goes on, “I’ll be right here. Ooh-” with a rueful grimace, he sucks in a breath through his teeth and nods towards the clock on the far wall, “except for, you know, _right now,_ because I need to head off to the wrestlers and you to the socceroos.”

Myka laughs, and it’s a bit watery, that laugh. “Thanks, Pete,” she says. 

He pushes her out of their corner and down the corridor, then points finger guns at her as he walks away backwards. “You betcha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello you lovely people! With the last chapter, I have cracked a _milestone;_ I have officially published more than _A MILLION_ words on AO3. Which, whoa. Holy crap. And it wouldn't have happened without you all, reading, kudos'ing, and most importantly commenting. I kid you not, comments _give me life_. So, for my sake and that of all the other authors on here: when you love a fic, consider leaving a comment, and thanks to everyone who does! It means the world. Thank you all and take care of your wonderful selves, you hear? Lots of love from your friendly neighborhood NUtellaMOnster.


	7. Helena

Helena sits on her bed and stares at the posters.

Yes, they say ‘Philip Pullman’ and ‘Lee Scoresby’ and ‘Lyra Silvertongue’ on them, but to Helena, they say ‘Myka’, over and over again. 

She presses her lips together; she doesn’t want to cry. Not again. She really needs to stop; she’s been crying pretty much every night since she came here, and it’s been almost three _weeks_. It’s getting beyond ridiculous. She’ll get ready for bed, settle down with a book until she feels ready to drop off, turn off the light, and- 

Lie awake. 

And cry, in all probability. 

Okay, yes, so she’s lonely, but what else is new?

And yes, she’s far from home, but what does home even mean? A place where you’re at ease, feel safe, feel understood – her parents’ house (any of the ones that they’ve lived in) does not qualify as any of that. Hasn’t since Charles left, or ever, really.

Only Aunt Tee’s ever has; for two weeks every summer. Until Aunt Tee died last March. 

This is Helena’s second summer without her, and she feels lost. Doubly so in this place where everything is just off enough to drive home, day after day, that she’s somewhere really different, but-

These posters say ‘Myka’. 

And Mrs. Frederic is actually quite friendly. Leena, too.

Mrs. Frederic is an old friend of one of her father’s work partners, or something like that. Helena didn’t pay a lot of attention to that part of the conversation when it happened; she was more focused – and horrified – at words like ‘the States’ and ‘exchange year’. They sounded exactly like ‘military academy’ sounds in those horrible coming-of-age movies. 

She doesn’t want her life to be a horrible coming-of-age movie, but no one ever asked her.

Really, she just wants some peace and quiet. 

Seen from that point of view, the idea of a year away from her parents didn’t seem so bad. 

And then Myka Bering happened. 

Well, no, Helena corrects herself, Myka Bering didn’t just happen; she, Helena, played a part too, not staying away from her the way she did, and now there are posters hung on walls that were somehow more reassuring when bare, and butterflies are congregating in her stomach just when she’s stopped feeling so queasy about going to school anymore. 

Bollocks.

Helena half-rises, ready to tear the posters off the wall again, but touching her fingers to the bottom corner of the nearest of them, she can’t. She remembers Myka’s fingers on her cheek as Myka wiped mascara off her face, remembers a worried face in the gloom of an unlit attic. 

This is not a re-run of what happened in spring; this is far, far more than that. 

And that means that if this goes wrong too, it’s going to be far, far worse than _anything_ that happened this spring. 

And if Helena projects from past experiences, the chance that this will _not_ go wrong is… small. 

Not quite non-existent; Helena isn’t quite ready for that level of nihilism yet. But it’s difficult to see how this could work. Even if she and Myka get along, she’s only here for the next nine months, after all. And seriously, teenage romance rarely lasts. Just last week in psychology, they spoke about human development, including the fact that the brain isn’t done developing until the mid-twenties – how can any crush at seventeen endure past that? 

But there is also Aunt Tee’s letter, that Helena got when the will was read, that she read later, in the privacy of her room. Aunt Tee asked for a promise in that letter and Helena gave it, and this… this seems exactly like the kind of situation Aunt Tee was talking about. 

Helena’s finger still rests on the poster, wondering if she has it in her to follow Aunt Tee’s advice. Her stomach twinges a little, just a twitch compared to the last weeks, but still, it’s noticeable. If only Helena knew what it was trying to tell her with it. Gut feelings are supposed to be helpful, aren’t they? But is her gut flinching at the thought of following Aunt Tee’s advice, or at the thought of _not_ doing so? 

In the absence of chewing gum to soothe her, Helena runs her finger over the edge of the poster, up and down, up and down.

Myka picked these, reasoned out why Helena might like them more than all the others. Invested a lot of time and effort into this gift.

And Mrs. Frederic had said, that very night of the smeared mascara, that there was no better or more loyal friend to have than Myka Bering, and to value and respect that. 

But kissing, or dating, or anything else in that vein, is often the fastest way to ruin a friendship. 

On the other hand, rebuking Myka now, at the very awakening of such feelings in her – it’s already too late, isn’t it? If she tells Myka no now, Myka _will_ be hurt. If Helena wanted to stop this, she shouldn’t have kissed her. Shouldn’t have let a moment arise when kissing her was even an option.

But what would hurt Myka more – if Helena stops this now, or if it implodes down the line, or if they just let it go on and then go their separate ways at the end of the school year?

And what would hurt Helena more?

If there is any way in which this doesn’t end in heartbreak, Helena can’t see it.

Going off to college together instead of parting ways – sure. Helena scoffs. Because her grades, _if_ she manages to study, by herself in a foreign country, well enough to pass her A-level exams, are certainly going to be _just_ as good as those of someone who’s been working on going to an Ivy League college for the last three years. 

No. 

She isn’t a bad student; she isn’t stupid. Her GCSE grades were good and would have been better if she had bothered to put more work in. But that’s the thing – she hasn’t. And no Harvard or Yale or Stanford or wherever is ever going to take her. 

She wishes she could talk this over with someone. Myka’s question about talking with Pete had stabbed Helena with envy, pure and green. Thanks, Joe and Sarah Wells. Thanks a lot. How can a kid make a friend if she’s nowhere longer than a year or two? Much less the kind of friend that Pete is to Myka?

And Charles-

Charles is out of the picture, has been for years. She has no idea how he’d react, and she doesn’t think she could stand if he reacted like their parents did this spring.

Helena’s eyes start to swim, and she bites the inside of her lip sharply to keep the tears from spilling. She’s angry more than anything else right now; angry that she doesn’t have a Pete, that she was never allowed to; angry that this… _thing_ with Myka is dangling in front of her, so enticing, so alluring, and yet so out of reach. She snatches her fingers away from the poster and balls them into fists.

It can’t last. 

Maybe one day at a time might work, but it will end in tears, as the saying goes; Helena is sure of it, in her gut. 

Maybe it is better to head this off now. 

-_-_-

It isn’t Myka who greets her the next morning, though; it’s Steve. “Hey, H.G.! I’ve got something for you.” He, too, is holding a cardboard tube. 

Helena narrows her eyes as dismay curls trough her insides. Leena knowing how her room looks can’t be helped; Myka knowing has been Helena’s choice – Steve though? Myka must have told him, and that doesn’t sit well with Helena. At all. “Oh?” she says curtly.

Steve’s brow crinkles equally briefly, then he holds out the tube. “If you don’t like them, just let me know. Myka said sci-fi stuff, I extrapolated from there. D’you need them for a project or something? Because if you need action figures or other stuff like that, I can-”

Helena shakes her head, suddenly so relieved that she sinks down into the nearest chair even though it isn’t hers. Steve doesn’t know. “No, that’s alright.” She covers her weakness by opening the tube and unrolling the posters on the desk in front of her. When she really looks at them, she gasps softly. 

“This is my last The Last Jedi poster,” Steve says with a proud, almost parental smile. “If you’re not interested, I definitely want that back.”

“Are these yours?”

“Not off my own walls, if that’s what you mean,” Steve replies. “I work in a theater, and we get to keep posters sometimes, and I try to get as many of the good ones as I can. It’s kind of a business, you know, with trades and favors and everything, so…” He grins. “Myka and her stuff are in it, too. If you want something that isn’t in here, you can let either of us know and we’ll put out the word.”

“Do you have one of the General Leia ones?” Helena immediately asks, then holds her breath. 

Steve laughs out loud. “Are you kidding? Those are rarer than gold-pressed latinum. I got _one_ , and I’m _not_ parting with it. That one _is_ actually on my own wall.”

Helena nods, even if she’s envious. “Good choice.” She rifles through the rest of them – half a dozen in all. “I like the Arrival one, and I did love Mad Max, but…” she frowns at the poster, which has far too much Tom Hardy and far too little Charlize Theron.

“This size I only have that one,” Steve says. “I have a smaller one with Charlize only on it; about this big?” He holds out his hands to the rough size of an A4 page. “I was debating on that one,” he adds with a grin, “but figured I’d stick with the standard format for this batch.”

“That one,” Helena says emphatically. And then her eyes grow round, and she pulls one poster out reverentially. 

“Thought you’d like that one,” Steve nods. 

“Is that Wonder Woman?” Pete is here. “Man, I freaking _loved_ that movie.”

Helena narrows her eyes at him. “This poster, however, is mine,” she says, low and menacing. 

He backs off, hands up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Hippolyta. I’m not going to take your Diana away from you.” Then he sees someone behind Helena, and his face positively lights up. He opens his mouth and- 

“Not a word, Pete,” Helena hears Myka’s voice from behind her, and barely stifles a groan. 

So Pete knows; Myka must have told him. Steve looks between the three of them with a small frown, so he probably doesn’t. 

Helena quickly assembles the posters and rolls them back together. “Can I return the tube to you tomorrow, Steve?” she asks. 

“Sure,” he shrugs. “Put those back in that you don’t want, and I’ll bring you the Mad Max one tomorrow. Is that okay with you?”

“More than,” Helena says. “Thanks a lot.” Only then does she look up at Myka – and catches the tail end of a satisfied grin on the other girl’s face. It softens into a smile when Myka notices that Helena’s looking at her, that small smile with one corner higher than the other. 

Helena can’t say no to that smile. Can’t say ‘we shouldn’t be doing this’ to that smile. 

Her heart lurches when that smile falters, and then she realizes that she’s not smiling back in return and that’s probably why, so she tries to rectify the situation. She can do this. Smiling when she doesn’t feel like smiling? Nothing new. 

It seems that Myka can tell that kind of smile already, though. 

Myka’s face turns stricken for a moment, and then thoughtful as she throws a furtive glance around the room that’s filling up with students. She gives a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, and when she smiles back at Helena, it’s nothing more than your regular greeting-friends-in-the-morning grin and Helena feels more nauseous than she has in days. 

How could she have ever let things come this far? 

She heads back to her own desk after exchanging a few more words of small talk, and then does her best to stay away from (or at least be nothing more than polite to) Myka for the rest of the day, to the point of actively taking part in class, if only for the distraction it provides.

In computer science, the only subject in which they’re allowed to use actual computers, a small messenger window pops up in the bottom left corner of Helena’s screen five minutes in. 

She stares at it – she wasn’t aware that programs like these were installed on the computers, or that they were allowed at all. 

Three dots appear and wiggle – someone is typing. 

**SerenDipity:** how’s it going? resident computer genius reporting for duty. 

Helena’s jaw drops. She does not immediately look up to catch Claudia’s gaze – far too surreptitious. Instead, she types back.

 **MotherOfMorlocks:** how on Earth

Oh for goodness’ sake. Helena stares a moment at the username that she most certainly has not picked out. She imagines that Claudia is grinning widely right now, either outright or on the inside. 

**SerenDipity:** ask me no questions and I shan’t tell u no lies.  
**SerenDipity:** what’s up with u today? That stunt in physics was a bit OOC. I know u know better than to wire stuff so that it blows a fuse. Kudos on ur acting skillz if that was on purpose tho.

 **SerenDipity:** is this about u n Myka?

Helena grows cold. How does Claudia – if this is indeed Claudia – know?! 

**SerenDipity:** I’m not blind yk

Helena wants to curse. 

**SerenDipity:** and hey I don’t mind. No H8. I just noticed u n M not teaming up in physics today. One could almost say avoid. And M was straight up moping in spanish.  
**SerenDipity:** one could almost say  
**SerenDipity:** pining  
**SerenDipity:** rimshot dot gif  
**SerenDipity:** that’s a lesbian thing, isn’t it? Pining?

 **MotherOfMorlocks:** I am not lesbian.

There, Helena thinks, that seems safe to say. Type. Whatever. Claudia is too smart for her own good, obviously; too observant, too. 

**SerenDipity:** fine, bi then.  
**SerenDipity:** pan?  
**SerenDipity:** either way, it’s cool. M is like the coolest person in school, and ur second  
**SerenDipity:** no offense  
**SerenDipity:** so anyway, cool.  
**SerenDipity:** and hey if u wanna talk, I’ll listen. I figure M has her people but u don’t really  
**SerenDipity:** n I don’t know if u’d even consider talking to me, but I have XP. HMU anytime.

What is there to say to that? Claudia is right; Myka has people to talk to and Helena doesn’t, not really. But Claudia? Yes, Helena has gotten to know the kid a bit during comp sci and physics, the two classes that they share, but-

 **SerenDipity:** oh, also mr. secord is totally cool with it. Don’t let the guidance counselor sign fool u, he’s legit a good listener. I shd know, I live with him & his wife. They helped me thru some srs sh*t. Can recommend, 12/10.

 **MotherOfMorlocks:** thanks

 **SerenDipity:** sure. Also cool if u don’t wanna talk. Signing out now, don’t wanna get into trouble. 

The program window collapses. 

Helena stares at the space where it had been, a moment ago. So, Claudia knows, or suspects strongly, that there is something between Myka and Helena. And she’s okay with it – makes sense for someone whose brother is gay. Which is probably also where her claim of experience stems from. Or maybe she herself-? But then she would have said so, wouldn’t she? 

Helena has spoken to Mr. Secord exactly once, in the context of academic counseling, when she picked out her AP classes to match her A-level subjects. He didn’t have much knowledge of A-levels, but said he’d look into it for her next visit – which hasn’t happened. 

You don’t go to counselors voluntarily. You just don’t, no matter what a junior in your comp sci class says. Sure, this is the US where everyone and their brother sees a shrink, but still. You don’t go to a counselor voluntarily. Some things are just ingrained, and that’s one of them.

If she talks to anyone, it’ll be Myka, to end this. 

Claudia catches her at the end of class, though. “Wasn’t that awesome?”

Helena raises her eyebrows. “Certainly impressive.”

“Oh come on, how many people do you know who can remote install a banned program without official admin rights and then have a conversation right under Jamison’s nose, huh?”

“I did say impressive, didn’t I?” Helena looks around, but they’re alone in the corridor now; no teacher or fellow student to overhear. 

“So, what _is_ going on?” Claudia asks, catching Helena’s watchfulness. 

“Not here,” Helena says brusquely. Not here, not now, not this, no matter how empty the hallway. She wants to talk about this, probably _should_ talk about this, but-

Claudia pulls her into a bathroom. “Just like old times, am I right?” She checks the door to every single stall, then stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed. “Clear. Shoot.”

Helena palms her forehead. “I don’t know how to do this,” she sighs, surprising herself. 

“Typically,” Claudia says, speaking very slowly, “you _open your mouth_ and you _speak words_ that _describe_ your _thoughts_. Feelings. Questions. Fears. Wishes. Fanta-”

“Alright, alright,” Helena interrupts her before things can get worse. “Claudia, I barely-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you barely know me.” Claudia rolls her eyes. “And I’m soooo much younger than you. But hey, how about seeing this as an advantage? You can just talk to me, see what I have to say, and ignore it as the ramblings of a naïve 16-year-old if you don’t like it. Besides, who else do you have?”

Helena stares at the kid. Claudia’s not wrong, and the thing is: she probably knows it. “How do I know I can trust you, though?” If Claudia can do blunt, Helena can, too.

“Easy,” Claudia shrugs, “you don’t. Not yet. You’ll only know afterwards, when I don’t talk to anyone else about you and Myka, sittin’ in a tree, P-I-N-I- damn that doesn’t scan,” she ends, with an annoyed snap of her fingers. “Anyway, I won’t. If you need a pinky promise, I don’t do that kind of thing usually, but I guess…” she shrugs again and holds out her right hand, pinky outstretched.

Helena laughs and scoffs at the same time. Maybe Claudia’s right. “Besides,” she says, “if you do betray my trust I can always snitch on your little stunt in comp sci just now.”

“You have no proof,” Claudia says haughtily, letting her hand sink down again. 

“I don’t think Mr. Jamison will need proof,” Helena replies. “He has it in for you already.”

Now Claudia scoffs. “Geriatric Ferengi,” she mutters. “Yeah, alright, I’ll give you that one if it makes you feel better. Please don’t rat me out.” She makes an imploring face to go along with her plea, but her voice is laconic.

Weirdly enough, though, it helps. “I… just don’t know if this is a good idea,” Helena says. 

“What, you and Myka?”

Helena shrugs a yes. 

“Dude,” Claudia says. “Like I said, coolest person plus second-coolest person – no offense – what’s not to like?”

“The fact that we’re both girls?” Shouldn’t that be obvious?

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Claudia points out, “nor the last. Will there be shitty comments? Ah-yup, assholes still exist. Will there be leering and fetishizing? Probably. But. Will there be support? Definitely. We do have a GSA in this school, and it’s not just lip service, I can promise you that.”

“Will it be worth it? Unknown,” Helena continues in Claudia’s style. 

“For real? Dude, you _never_ know. That’s kinda the point of this whole dating, high school sweethearts thing, right? No risk no reward, Wells, that is and will always be the case.”

“Once bitten twice shy also,” Helena fires back.

Claudia’s eyes grow wide in realization. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, sorry. That sucks.” Claudia thinks for a moment. “Back in good old England, I assume?”

Helena nods and fidgets with the hem of her shirt. 

“Well, I mean, you’re not there anymore. Things are different here. Does that help?”

“Not really.” Helena sighs and crosses her arms. “I had a more solid idea of what to expect in England. Things are different enough here that I don’t, not really, and that…” It’s hard to describe how it makes her feel without using words like ‘helpless’, and that’s a word she’s _not_ ready to utter.

Claudia nods. “Gotcha,” she says. Her gaze drops to the floor and she kicks the tiles for a moment with the toe of her boots. “I used to be in the system- um, my parents are dead. Orphanages et cetera. That system,” she explains when Helena shoots her a puzzled look. “And I had some mental health issues as a kid? So… I didn’t really go to an actual, public school until I started here. So, yeah, I know how it feels to come into an environment that you kinda know and kinda don’t.” She gives Helena a grimacing smile. “Aaaand there’s ammunition number two for you,” she sighs. “I mean people know that my parents are gone, but not about the mental health thing, so I’d, um, be obliged if you…” 

“I’ll keep it to myself,” Helena nods. 

“Thanks.” Claudia bites her cheek for a moment. “Look, I don’t know if it helps much, because I do know that trust needs time and that you need to make some experiences for yourself, yada yada yada, but… I don’t think you’d get into trouble, you and Myka. I don’t think you need to worry about being bullied for it, or worse. Josh and Steve never were, really, and that was a year ago. Or Abby and Dani. Or when Ben said they were non-binary, that went mostly okay too. If anyone does give you grief, the GSA’s there, and the guidance counselor too, like I said. Perks of being in a pretty progressive school, am I right?”

Helena twists her lips in irritation. “I suppose.” She sighs and shakes the expression off her face. It’s not Claudia who she’s irritated at. “Thank you for the reassurance, though. I do appreciate it.”

“For what it’s worth, I guess,” Claudia shrugs. The two-minute bell rings and she looks at the door. “Look, I gotta head to envi sci; d’you want me to say hi to Myka for you?” She gives Helena a cheeky grin. 

Helena glares at her in return, but her heart isn’t in it; not if she’d much rather sit in the same room as Myka for the next fifty minutes than have a free period in which she’s supposed to cross-reference what she learned today with what’s on the A-level course schedule. 

“Oh my god, you’re adorbs.” Claudia claps her hands. “You got it just as bad as she has. I’ll put you both down for ‘most likely to make people barf with cuteness’, alright?”

“I thought the point of these was that there is only one for each category,” Helena grouses.

“And she’s back, everyone.” Claudia pats Helena’s shoulder as she passes her by. “Relax, Wells; this is your senior year. No time like the present, carpe diem, Qapla’ and so on.”

The door closes behind her, and Helena is left staring at herself in the row of mirrors.


	8. Myka

Myka understands why Helena held back this morning – it’s better this way; part of taking it slow, of not letting people find out. 

That doesn’t stop her from sneaking glances at Helena as often as she can get away with. Helena finally seems to have taken Myka’s advice to heart and is engaging with the teachers and other students more, so there are plenty of opportunities to look at her. 

Helena is _smart_. 

She might not have the same educational background as everyone else in class, but she is quick on the uptake, especially when it comes to all things scientific. And she seems to have an instinctive understanding for some things. Like, she can tell a right angle just by looking at it, and knows how things influence other things they’re connected to, like that puzzle with all the gears, where the question is how some random other gear would turn if you turned the first gear clockwise or counterclockwise? Myka is 98% certain Helena could answer that _at a glance_. That’s the kind of mind Helena has. 

It is breathtaking.

Okay, yes, so Myka is a bit star-struck, but who can blame her? Helena is beautiful, and intelligent, and she has this accent and this smirk and… 

Having a crush is _severely_ distracting. Myka vows never to make fun of anyone with a crush ever again. She wants to just _look_ at Helena every time the other girl moves in her seat; she wants to kiss her and hold her again just like they did before – Myka’s only saving grace is that they’re not alone in the classroom; how she’s going to get through tutoring this afternoon in the library where there are far fewer people around, Myka has no idea. 

She sits opposite Helena for lunch, and that is a _mistake_ , because Helena’s lips around a spoonful of dessert ice cream are _sinful_.

Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. 

“Did I get it right in class today?” is the first thing Helena asks when they’re at their usual library table. “Too much interaction? Too little?”

Myka shakes her head. “Goldilocks,” she says, “just right.”

“Aces.” Helena nods in satisfaction and starts putting her hair up in a ponytail. “Thanks again for the tip.”

“Sure. How do you find balancing your A-level stuff with the stuff from class so far?” If they stick to topics like this, Myka thinks, this might just work, even if Helena carding her fingers through her hair makes Myka want to do the same thing _so badly_. 

Who would have known she has a thing for _hair?_

“Doable,” Helena says. “Some of what we’ve gone over in class I already know, which is handy.” There’s that smirk again, that little curl to one corner of Helena’s mouth. 

Myka wants to kiss it, _so badly_.

Helena catches her staring, and clears her throat. Her hands sink down, ponytail in place. “Focus?” she suggests, but she is blushing just like Myka. 

“Focus,” Myka affirms. She settles her glasses better with a quick wiggle of her nose, takes a deep breath, and dives into electrostatics again. 

At five to five, Myka heads to the front desk to see if any books need returning. Helena follows after, and Jane shoos them out. 

On the stair landing, Helena grabs Myka’s arm. “Myka, could I… could we talk for a bit?” She casts her eyes up the stairs, to the ‘Staff only’ door. “Just for a moment? I won’t keep you long, I promise.”

Myka looks around, then at her watch. If she tells her parents that traffic was bad, she can swing it. Probably. “Sure,” she says. 

Coming up to her attic has always had a calming effect – with Helena in tow, though, not so much. Like, at all. Myka’s heart is in her throat as she climbs the ladder. It’s stiflingly hot in here today; drawbacks of having a hide-out on the un-air-conditioned top floor of a building, at least during summer (okay, technically it post-equinox, but still. It’s in the high eighties today. That’s summer.) Myka is glad that her hair is up in a ponytail too; having it hang open on her shoulders would be torture. She can feel herself starting to sweat as it is.

Helena’s standing there, fingers of one hand rubbing the knuckles of the other, shoulders slightly more hunched than usual. “I got a pep talk earlier,” she says, “from Claudia. She’s figured it out, from watching us. We need to be more careful.” She grimaces. “Or… or be upfront about it, I suppose.”

Myka gulps. “Did she say anything in particular that stood out to her?”

“She spoke of ‘pining’,” Helena says with a helpless shrug. 

“Oh.” Myka is pretty sure that’s on her. Heat rises in her cheeks. “I think that’s on me.”

“Not you alone,” Helena says, and now she’s blushing too. “I found it bloody hard to concentrate today.”

“God, same,” Myka says with a big exhale. She rubs the back of her neck – ugh, it’s sticky – and casts a grin at Helena. “All I wanted to do all day was kiss you again. I am _not_ used to this.”

Helena’s blush deepens. “Can’t rightfully say I am, either,” she replies.

“Can I?”

“Hm?”

“Kiss you?”

Helena sucks in her lower lip, bites on it, releases it, and nods – which is good, because after that display, Myka really, really wants to soothe that poor lip, so recently mistreated. 

And she does.

Myka’s eyes roam Helena’s expression when they break apart. There’s a small sheen of sweat on her face, and Myka wonders if it’s the general heat up here, or a result of them kissing. She knows she herself is feeling warmer than she has a minute ago. 

“This is a dangerous place,” Helena whispers.

“What do you mean?” This has always been Myka’s safest place; the only place that is truly hers, her haven.

“There’s a futon _right there_ , and no one to catch us.” 

It takes Myka a moment to realize what Helena means, but when she does, it hits her with the force of a steam roller. 

Then Helena shakes her head and takes a step back. Her face grows determined. “But you have to go home. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

“Yeah…” Myka sighs. Helena is right; they don’t have time. Then she frowns. “I mean I guess I could ask them. My parents. I mean not about today, but… in general. I was rarely home before dinner last year, after all, and I mean I _am_ seventeen and a half. I just… never really questioned it.”

Helena tilts her head. “Would you be allowed to visit a friend? You coming over for dinner on Sunday wasn’t a problem, was it?” She’s looking worried now.

“No!” Myka says quickly. “No, that was fine. And yeah, I guess I could come and visit. Or say we’re hanging out together, and then hang out here. It’s… it’s probably easiest if I introduce them to the idea of you being one of my friends, at first,” she says with a grimace of annoyance. “They know we’re tutoring each other. I probably should ease them into it, kinda thing?” 

“You know them best,” Helena says, simple as that. “Whatever you think will work is fine with me.” 

Myka nods. “Or you could… come visit?” She doesn’t really like the idea of her dad encountering Helena even as ‘just friends’, but her parents know the rest of the gang, and will probably agree more readily to Myka hanging out if they’ve met Helena in person. 

It has to happen at some point. Just maybe… not quite so soon.

“Only if you want to,” Helena says, catching Myka’s hesitation. 

Myka presses her lips together. “My dad isn’t the easiest to get along with,” she explains. It’s a phrase that Pete uses when he describes Warren Bering. “He can get a bit… intense.” 

Helena nods, then gives Myka the tiniest of smirks. “I’ll just have to be on my best behavior, then. Whenever I do meet him.”

Myka’s knees want to go weak over that smirk, but she gives them a good talking-to. “I’ll talk with my parents,” she promises. “See if I can manage to persuade them to let me hang out with you on Thursday.”

Helena nods, then looks at her feet. Her jaw is working. Then she meets Myka’s eyes again. “We should probably head out,” she says. Her voice sounds a little… pressed. 

Myka has never heard her like that. “Are you okay?”

Helena quickly nods, but drops her gaze again. “I… yes. I’m fine.”

“… but?” Myka isn’t that easily deterred. 

“I want to kiss you again,” Helena whispers. “But if we do, I won’t want to stop. And that’s not a good idea. Not for taking things slowly, and not for your curfew.”

Myka almost chokes, as if her throat has suddenly forgot how to swallow correctly. “Yeah, you’re, uh, you’re right,” she says weakly. “Let’s… let’s get going.”

For a moment, neither of them moves. Then, with a deep breath, Helena straightens her shoulders and picks up her bag. 

-_-_-

Myka’s parents say yes, and Thursday can’t come fast enough. Myka is elated, exhilarated, busy preparing and getting things ready. 

She feels as though she’s flying, in a way she’s never flown before. She’s had highs – the summer fencing tournament comes to mind, when everything she did simply went _right_ – but not like this. 

Never like this. 

It irks her that all of her mom’s comments of ‘you’ll find the right guy in time; just wait’ are true. Well, apart from the gender her mom assumed. But oh, did Myka ever resent every single one of those comments when they came, and now here she is, heart speeding up at the mere thought of Helena Grace Wells, stars in her eyes and lepidoptera in her intestinal system.

She still doesn’t stop herself grinning every time she thinks of Helena – as long as she’s by herself. Hard enough to stop herself grinning when she’s among people, but when she’s on her own? In her bedroom, in her car (when she’s not driving Tracy around), in the supermarket, flying up the stairs to her attic to stash stuff there? 

Grinning like a fool.

She wonders if Helena does the same. If Helena feels the same. She does, doesn’t she? That comment about kissing and not wanting to stop, that _has_ to mean something. Pete said so too.

Maybe they can talk about that. In between the kissing; when they feel like stopping. _If_ they feel like stopping.

Seriously, this Wednesday is the longest day in human existence, against all physical laws. Every classroom has a clock, and not a single hand on a single clock in a single classroom moves at the right pace; Myka is sure of it.

Thursday is even worse.

At least it’s raining today; the kind of rain that lasts all day. The air in the attic will be manageable; humid, yes, but nowhere near as hot as Tuesday. And the patter of rain on the roof is something Myka has always found calming.

Helena is wearing yet another button-up shirt, and Myka _knows_ this one, was there when Helena tried it on. She can’t forget standing six feet outside that cubicle, try though she might. 

Helena looks so good in those shirts, it’s not fair. Whenever Myka puts one on, she feels like an impostor, but on Helena, it looks utterly natural, like it is exactly what she should be wearing. Myka wonders if that’s because Helena has been wearing school uniforms all her life, then wonders _if_ Helena has been wearing school uniforms all her life – not all British schools mandate them anymore, do they? 

With thoughts like this to occupy her and a surprisingly busy two hours in the library, Thursday does pass after all; eventually they are up in the attic, staring at each other amidst the sound of rain on roofing. 

Helena seems to be just as breathless as Myka is, and that’s reassuring. 

Eventually, Myka gulps and sets down her bag. “I, um… I brought some things up here. Earlier. So we can stay here, if you like.”

“Stay?” Helena looks as though she doesn’t dare trust the idea. 

Myka nods. “I… I asked my parents. If I could hang out with you tonight. And they said yes. I gotta be home by ten, but, um… if you want to, we can stay here. Until then. Have food. Hang out.” She licks her lips nervously, swallows again. “If you like.”

Helena is staring now, as if Myka is some kind of apparition. Then a smile spreads across her face that can only be called radiant. “I’d love to,” she says, almost shyly. 

Relief rushes through Myka and she smiles back. “Awesome.”

They stay standing, stay looking at each other, until Helena gives a small laugh and takes two steps forward, takes Myka’s hand. “What _are_ we going to do with ourselves, I wonder.”

And then they’re kissing again, and it is glorious. Helena pushes Myka’s glasses up on her hair to get them out of the way; Myka allows her hands to stray into Helena’s hair – open today, not in a ponytail or in that sloppy bun that makes Myka’s hands itch to find and pull out all the bobby pins – and holy crap it is so soft. Like silk, cool and warm at the same time. And Helena sighs and leans into her when Myka plays with it, and she could do this for the rest of forever, run its strands through her fingers, rake fingernails gently across the scalp, caress the baby hair at the nape with her fingertips.

Her own hair is up in a bun today, to be any kind of manageable in this humidity, and it thwarts Helena’s fingers’ attempts to reciprocate. Helena growls with frustration when her fingers snag in it. 

“Let me,” Myka tells her, and Helena nods and withdraws, wrapping her arms around Myka’s waist instead. She does extricate Myka’s glasses from the top of her head, hooking them into the button band of her shirt instead, which distracts Myka to the point that Helena has to nudge her to move her hands from hovering at shoulder height back towards their original destination. 

When Myka leans back, their bodies press against each other from belly to thigh, and _again_ her thoughts are derailed, but this time she powers through. Helena’s eyes are embarrassingly intent as they follow the motions of Myka’s fingers tugging out hair tie and bobby pins, and her hands stay Myka’s when Myka makes to run her fingers through her curls to loosen them up. “May I?” she asks in a whisper, and Myka nods and lets her hands sink down. 

“Careful, please,” she says, “my hair is awful in this kind of weather.” It’ll be uncontrollable tonight, but Myka doesn’t care; she wants to feel this, see if it is as wonderful as her imagination tells her it will be.

Helena nods, and her fingers _are_ careful, tentative, cool and warm as her hair. She runs them through Myka’s curls so slowly it’s almost agonizing, but at the same time Myka has never felt anything as amazing as this. It feels, somehow, more intimate than kissing; Helena’s eyes are intent again, now following her own fingers’ motions, and Myka is free to gaze at Helena’s face right up close, mapping and cataloguing every last detail of it. 

Helena’s skin is so pale it’s almost translucent in some places; there’s a vein Myka can see that runs parallel to her hairline on her left temple. There’s a small scar above her right eyebrow, peach fuzz around her hairline and chin, a smattering of freckles across her face. She looks far less tired today.

She is so beautiful, and Myka drinks it in. That someone as beautiful as Helena would even _consider_ -

Helena’s fingers get more confident, and it’s her fingernails on Myka’s scalp now, short and blunt and scraping ever so slightly, and Myka feels her eyes flutter shut and her knees buckle. Her head droops and lands on Helena’s shoulder, and her arms curl upwards around Helena’s shoulders to hold herself up. She laughs in surprise, and feels Helena’s answering laugh reverberate through the body she’s holding onto, and it-

It is all so much. 

So much to take in, so much to feel, so much to process. 

So for the moment, she just holds on to Helena, and takes in and feels and processes.

Who knew? Who knew that being with someone could be _this_ , too, not just kisses? Who knew that nice as kisses were – and Myka finds them _exceedingly_ nice – embracing someone and being held and having your hair played with could be this… this wonderful, too?

For the moment, Myka just _revels_ in it. Luxuriates in the feeling. Commits every single detail to memory: the way Helena’s shoulder bones and muscles feel under her arms and hands and cheek, the way the other girl’s body moves subtly against Myka’s as her hands weave their magic on Myka’s head, the scent of Helena’s deodorant and something else – hair product, maybe? Perfume? Laundry detergent? The soft rustle of both their clothes as they move, of Myka’s hair as it re-settles around her ears after a pass of Helena’s fingers. And underneath all of that, the familiar warmth and scent and sounds of her attic; the rain still pattering the roof – Myka suspects none of this will ever feel the same again without the overlay of Helena now.

There seems to be some tension in Helena’s shoulders, she realizes, and pulls away slightly to catch the other girl’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

Before Helena can hide it, Myka sees a suspicious shine in her eyes. Truth to tell, though, she herself feels a tiny bit weepy. This is just so _nice_.

Helena nods. Her head straightens and tilts upwards, and Myka thinks it’s an invitation to kiss and moves in to oblige, but Helena shakes her head and uses one of her hands to tip Myka’s head a bit differently, and then leans her forehead against Myka’s. 

She’s a bit shorter than Myka; maybe an inch or two? Myka’s head is canted down, and Helena’s head is canted up, and now Helena’s hands drop to Myka’s waist and pull the two of them together, and Myka closes her arms around Helena’s shoulders, and then Helena sighs and lets her head sink onto Myka’s shoulder and moves impossibly closer still. Her hands wrap around Myka’s back, and Myka feels one of her own hands come up and cradle the back of Helena’s head against her, and that feels even nicer. Protective, and protected, and _close_.

Who knew?

Okay, yeah, so everyone who’s ever done this, probably, but still. This is no Pete hug, as nice as those are. This is way beyond ‘nice’; this is… this is _perfect._

This must be what Pete meant. Because this feels so, _so_ right. 

Myka thinks she could stay like this for the rest of forever, with Helena’s scent in her nose, her breaths in her ear, and her body in her arms, and be happy. 

And then she realizes: the rest of forever isn’t what they have. 

They have till June. Then the school year is over, and Helena will return to England.

Right?

It’s Helena who pulls back now, who looks up at Myka with a little crease of worry between her eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”

Myka’s hands fall down, suddenly limp. She drops her gaze with a grimace. “I just… I don’t want this to ever end,” she says, and then realizes how that sounds. They haven’t even really started yet, have they? “I mean…” She clears her throat. “I mean, I really like this. And…” 

“And one day it’ll be June,” Helena sighs, obviously thinking along the same lines. She takes a step back and pulls a face. “I was trying not to think of that,” she says in a sad voice.

“Sorry.”

Helena inhales deeply and shakes her head, then exhales. “No, it’s alright. It is something we should think about sometime. Just… please not now?”

Myka takes a deep breath too. It comes out in a rush when she says, “Yeah.” She reaches out a hand, and after a moment, Helena puts hers in it. “Let’s sit down?” Myka suggests.

The futon is the single greatest addition to the attic. Pete and her found it on the side of the road while driving through his neighborhood – one of the nicer parts of town, pretty close to Mrs. Frederic’s place, actually – with a sign ‘used 1yr, free to a good home.’ Myka had Pete stop immediately, and load it onto his truck; then she spent a few minutes looking up how best to clean a futon, and another hour back at Pete’s place furiously water-and-peroxide-spraying and vacuuming the mattress while Pete sanded down the wooden frame and gave it a nice clear coat. 

It had cost her sitting through three Marvel movies and weeks of pouting when he found out that the futon was for up here and not her bedroom, but she still considers that a good deal as she sinks down onto it with Helena now.

Myka wants to ask Helena about her plans for after June, but she holds her tongue, honoring Helena’s wish even as vague ideas of going to college together present themselves in her head. No, best to think of the now, of how worried Helena was the other day, and of what to do about that. “So, um… have you thought about how… like, what you said day before yesterday? Being stealthier about this, or being… open?” she asks instead. 

Helena sucks on her bottom lip for a long moment. “Not to the point where I know what I want to do about it,” she admits.

Myka nods. “Yeah, me either. I mean I get why it’s a good idea to keep this quiet, and if that’s what you want, I’m all in, but…” she swallows. “This just… this feels so… so amazing, and I don’t want to hide it. I don’t want to _have_ to hide it, or to feel like I should be, I don’t know, ashamed of it. You know? But… it’s also… it feels private. Like, this is something just for you and me? And I’m kinda protective of it just now? Talking to Pete was okay, helpful, but… the thought that he knows now is… weird, too. Part of me doesn’t want him to know, wants this to be ours alone.” She sighs. “And I also thought about what you said, about you being the new kid, and I get that. I do. So… so I guess what I’m saying is that if you want to keep this between us, I’m okay with that.”

Helena’s eyes are conflicted, just like Myka feels. “I think…” she says slowly, “I think for now, if we can, keeping quiet about it would allow us to get used to it a bit more easily. Myka, I…” She takes a big breath, holds it in, lets it go. “I’m scared. A bit.” When she looks up at Myka, the fear is clear in her eyes. “I had something… similar to this, back home, and it went badly. Spectacularly badly. And…” she looks away again. “I’ve debated if it’s a good idea to even go on, but…” her hand seeks out Myka’s, curls around it, holds on. “I already trust you far more than I ever trusted her; I think that counts for something. I want it to. The past few days, there has been a lot of convincing myself, pep-talking myself. Trying to talk myself out of it, too,” she adds almost tonelessly. One corner of her mouth quirks up in a self-deprecating smile, and she adds quickly, as if she can see how Myka’s stomach has dropped at the very idea, “That one didn’t work. Not when I see you every day and-” Helena snaps her mouth shut with a click. 

“And what?” Myka dares to ask after a moment. She feels as if she’s teetering – Helena has tried to talk herself _out_ of this? She tries to cling to the ‘didn’t work’ that followed.

“And find myself wanting. This,” Helena raises their entwined hands a bit, then lets them sink down again. “Our hug earlier. My head against your shoulder, you holding me – Myka, I-” she presses her lips together harshly, gulps as if she’s swallowing something that really doesn’t want to go down. 

And Myka remembers the look of want Helena has given her that first time they were up here, and what Helena’s said about not having friends, and thinks she understands it a bit better now. “It’s okay,” she says, and opens her arms. “It’s okay.”

Helena holds herself straight for a moment longer, then curls into Myka’s embrace. Myka can feel the tension in the girl’s shoulders again, can feel it in her whole body, making Helena tight and, somehow, smaller than she should be.

A new wave of protectiveness surges through Myka. “I don’t want this to go badly,” she whispers into Helena’s hair. “I want this to go well. Spectacularly well,” she adds. “I’ll do what I can, okay? Whatever I can. I promise.”

She can feel Helena’s hands ball into fists at her back, clenching around her shirt as if Helena is in pain. 

“Hey,” Myka says softly, “hey.” On impulse, she presses a kiss on Helena’s hair, then runs a hand through it. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s alright.” She has no idea how to console someone – but this is how they do it in the movies; this is the kind of thing you do in a situation like this, right?

She half-expects Helena to start to cry, but Helena doesn’t. She does draw very measured breaths, and Myka is pretty sure that when Helena starts to relax, it’s a deliberate choice, not a result of actually feeling at ease; as if she’s talking herself into relaxing her shoulders, her spine, her neck et cetera. But relax she does. And to feel that happening in Myka’s arms kicks off an even bigger rush of protectiveness. It also means… if she’s talking herself into this, then it means she’s not talking herself out of being with Myka. Right?

“Thank you,” Helena murmurs, but instead of pulling away, she slides her legs over Myka’s so they’re no longer angled weirdly against each other. She’s not quite sitting in Myka’s lap now, but almost – if Myka hoisted her up, they’d be there. 

Myka tightens her arm around Helena’s shoulders for a moment. “Anytime,” she says. She understands wanting to be held – it’s been quite a while since she’s felt that, too. Her dad was never a hugger, and her mom stopped hugging Myka when her dad started calling it mollycoddling.

That was around when Myka was ten.

There are birthday and Christmas hugs now, and yeah, the occasional Pete-hug, but other than that? It’s been a while. So whatever Helena’s history is with her parents or a former girlfriend, Myka understands wanting this. Now that she’s thinking about it, she wouldn’t mind being held either, but right now, her holding Helena is what’s happening, and that’s okay. 

“Do you already know what you want to do after school?” Helena asks, out of the blue, and Myka understands changing the topic well enough, too. It’s a bit weird, talking about this while still hugging, but so what?

“M-hm,” Myka replies and clears her throat to elaborate. “Yeah, I want to study law. I used to think of getting a bachelor’s in English and political science first, and then go to law school, but psychology is really fascinating, so maybe I’ll do that and pol sci. You?”

Helena sighs. “No idea, not really. That’s why my A-level subjects are all over the place. ‘Keeping my options open’,” she adds in a mocking tone. “People keep telling me to do something I’m good at, something I enjoy doing, but I don’t actually know what that would be. Or they say to study business or computer science because of the money you can make, and while I like comp sci, I don’t see myself doing that as a job. And business is _vile_ ; I wouldn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.” She actually shudders; Myka can feel it running through her body.

“You’re good at figuring things out,” Myka blurts out before she can stop herself. Then she sets her jaw and keeps going. “Like in physics. You just get how things work, how they fit together, what they’re supposed to do. I think you’d make a good engineer. You could build things. Or invent things.”

“Do you really think so?” Helena sounds pensive, though, not necessarily incredulous.

Myka nods. “I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone else who had such an easy time in physics. How’s your math?”

Helena shrugs. “Same as my physics.” She says it as though it’s nothing special, and part of Myka rejoices that Helena is so smart – but the bigger part of her knows very well where this kind of studied indifference is coming from (this would be the exact answer Myka would give her dad, after all), and it’s just sad. 

Myka refuses to let that taint their conversation, though. “Well, there you are then,” she says heartily, pulling back to smile at Helena. “If I remember correctly, those are the two subjects you need most. I mean if you wanted to go into bioengineering or into, I don’t know, creating new nanofibers or something, you might want to add biology or chemistry, but other than that, math and physics.”

Helena hums pensively. “It’s an idea,” she says. “But I do need to get my A-levels before I can apply. I came here before I could get my predicted grades, so I have basically nothing to apply with.”

Myka is surprised. “But… why? That doesn’t seem to make much sense?”

Helena gives a bitter laugh. “Because I’m here for punishment,” she says quietly, “not because I wanted to.”

Myka feels as though someone has punched her in the gut. “W-why?”

Helena slides her legs off Myka’s and sits back. “I’d much rather not talk about that. Let’s just say I disagree with my parents that I deserve it.”

She sounds so miserable that Myka immediately relents. “Of course. It sucks, though. Like, doesn’t that mean you miss a year?”

Helena shrugs. Her face is shuttering rapidly, and Myka doesn’t like the look of that. 

“Hey, I’m sorry.” She leans forward, closing part of the space between them that Helena has created. “I’m sorry. Let’s… let’s talk about something else. Okay?”

“Like what?” Helena snaps. Then she sighs and runs a hand across her forehead. “I’m sorry, that came out badly,” she says. “Bit of a sore point.”

“I totally understand,” Myka nods. “Let’s talk about something nicer, then? Like, I don’t know…” she casts around, trying desperately to find something to cheer Helena up. When did she last see her smile? And then she remembers: “Um, Wonder Woman?”

Helena snorts a laugh, but at least she sounds less bitter. “I do love that movie,” she says, and that sounds positively soft, compared to her earlier tones. “Loved the scene in No Man’s Land, when everyone tells her no and she just-”

“-goes ahead and does it anyway,” Myka nods. “Yeah, that was awesome.”

Talking about the movie is easier, and after a handful of minutes, Helena gravitates towards Myka again, this time leaning into her shoulder. Myka wraps her arm around her, and then learns that this isn’t all that comfortable when you have a backrest that’s taller than the shoulder you’re wrapping your arm around. It takes a few moments of shuffling and rearranging things, but then Helena’s head is on Myka’s thigh, and Myka can play with Helena’s hair to her heart’s content. 

Myka’s glasses are still tucked into the gap between two of Helena’s shirt buttons. Which… which means that they’re resting... on her chest, now. Between… on her chest. 

Can a person be envious of glasses?

Conversation peters out a little at this point, and Myka is content with that too. The feeling of Helena’s hair running between her fingers is hypnotic. Apparently for Helena too, because her eyelids are drooping, each blink lasting longer than the last. 

“You can go to sleep if you want,” Myka offers, thinking how… dreamy it would be to literally watch over Helena as she slept. Then she remembers, at the same moment as Helena opens her mouth (but not her eyes). “I forgot; you can’t. Never mind then.” No matter that Helena totally fell asleep in her car; that was probably still jetlag or something. 

“Even so,” Helena says, casting a soft smile upwards, “this is very relaxing.” She turns her head until her cheek leans into Myka’s body and snuggles against it. “Thank you.”

On cue, Myka’s stomach growls. 

Helena giggles, and that’s a first – laugh, yes, chuckle, yes, Myka has seen and heard both of those. A giggle though? It would be infectious, if Myka wasn’t mortified of her body making _noises._

“Time for food, then?” Helena says, sitting up and running a hand through her hair to settle it. It’s still a bit disorderly, but Myka would rather bite off her tongue than say so. “You said you have something?” 

Myka nods, trying to pull herself together. This is what she prepared for, after all. She’s got this. “Yes,” she says. “I could use your help?”


	9. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters at once! \o/
> 
> But the next chapter won't be up until October 6, just FYI. I'll try and give notice whenever there's a large gap between postings. And I'm putting this notice in the summary so that you can decide if you want to read both chapters at once or if you want to hold off on this one to pace yourself or whatevs :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this quite a while before September 18, 2020. This chapter mentions The Notorious RBG’s name – I just want to give you a heads up in advance. I have not re-written this chapter (or Chapter 3 where Myka mentions her too) to reflect the new circumstances. Everything remains as I wrote it way back at the beginning of the year.
> 
> May her memory be a blessing and a revolution. 
> 
> **CW: talk of a suicide attempt**

Helena is mystified as Myka presses the plastic bucket into her hands and then makes her way to the hatch. 

“There are two bathrooms on the downstairs hallway,” Myka explains. “We’ll need some water.” She opens the hatch and motions Helena to precede her. “Oh, and, uh… I’ll, ah,” her eyes flicker down to Helena’s chest, “I’ll need my glasses back, please. I mean I’m not that near-sighted, but… yeah, I need them back now.”

As they make their way to said bathrooms – which Helena makes use of, seeing as she’s there already – and back, Helena remembers the electric cooker, pot and stack of ramen she saw earlier, and wonders if that’s going to be dinner. Instant ramen seems a bit disproportionate when compared to Myka’s excitement, but it’s still kind of sweet. 

“Okay,” Myka says when they’re back in their tent, “the rest I’ll do on my own.” She takes her hair tie from her wrist and puts her hair back up into a bun that is at the same time haphazard and also very businesslike when combined with her determined expression – and ridiculously attractive to boot, just like that little settle-her-glasses nose wiggle.

Helena gives a mock little pout and sigh, and settles down on the futon again. She grabs a book at random from the shelf closest to it, even opens it, but she has no intention whatsoever to read a single word. 

Watching Myka is far more interesting. 

_Myka_ is far more interesting. 

Helena knows she’s falling fast. She almost did drift off to sleep on Myka’s lap, and while that was probably helped along by the hypnotic sound of rain falling onto the roof overhead, it is a level of trust, especially after only three weeks, that is unprecedented. Utterly without compare. And while Helena does know that Myka is trustworthy, her head is spinning from how fast, how positively recklessly her heart is running away with her. 

How much she wants this – not the kissing, or not just the kissing. How much she wants the easy conversations and the awkward fumbling, the quiet enjoyment of just being with each other. 

She has never wanted anything more in her life. 

There is no thought of ending this that is strong enough to withstand this feeling.

And the sheer magnitude of it scares her – but then here is Myka, puttering about measuring water into the pot and putting it on the little cooker that’s resting very responsibly on its cinderblock, rustling stuff out of little plastic bags, improvising an honest-to-god tea table in front of the futon by way of two milk crates and the top of her desk-

As if all of this was the most normal thing in the world. And maybe it is. Maybe this is Helena’s new normal; maybe this is something she can allow herself to get used to. 

This is what Aunt Tee spoke of in her letter, Helena is sure of it now. She desperately wishes for it, that much is sure. But wishing don’t make it so, as Aunt Tee has often said. 

But here’s Myka, serving up two bowls of instant ramen topped with corn and- “Grated cheese?” Helena laughs out loud. “How very American.” Still, it’s sweet, and definitely a step up from having only noodles and broth and re-hydrated bits of greenery. Not disproportionate at all; eminently deserving of every ounce of Myka’s enthusiasm. The scent of it wakes Helena’s hunger, and she sits up straight and proper to honor this meal and its cook.

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Myka says primly, and hands Helena a pair of chopsticks. “Besides, it counts as protein and makes this a complete meal, if not the healthiest one. But: carbs, protein, veggies.” She makes a voilà gesture over the bowls.

Helena gives her a disbelieving smirk, but starts to eat nevertheless and-

It’s good. 

Grated cheese on instant ramen is actually good. It has melted into the hot soup, and it’s creamy, almost buttery, alongside the corn. 

“Well?” Myka asks after a few moments. 

“It’s good,” Helena says. “Really good. No knocking here.” She shoots Myka a happy smile. “Thank you.”

Myka’s answering grin is huge and beaming. 

They both go on eating, occasionally smiling at each other. 

“I don’t have a fridge in here, so no dessert,” Myka says as Helena finishes her bowl. “I didn’t feel comfortable having anything chocolate-y or creamy up here all day when I didn’t know how hot the attic would be. But we can sneak down and get some chocolate bars or something from a vending machine?”

“Oh, no, that’s alright,” Helena says quickly. “I think your candy is made differently than in the UK; it makes me feel queasy.”

“Probably the high-fructose corn syrup,” Myka mutters. “Sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Helena says in reply. “I’m just happy I’ve finally adapted and/or know what I should eat or not. Knock on wood,” she adds with a rueful smile, rapping her knuckles on the futon frame. 

Myka solemnly raps her knuckles on the tabletop. “Hoping there’s no more puking in the school bathrooms,” she says. 

“Hear, hear.” Helena sighs. Then she throws Myka a curious look – the other girl is blushing fiercely. “Something wrong?”

“No, I just-” Myka begins quickly, in a high and breathy voice, and then just as quickly stops speaking. 

Helena raises her eyebrows in silent prompt.

“Um.” Myka clears her throat. “I, um. _Have_ seen people in only a bra before. Like, in lockers. People in bikinis at the pool. Right? But, um. That day. That was new. The way I reacted.” Her eyes drop and she presses her lips together, then goes on, “It’s silly. I mean I don’t wish puking on anyone, but… I mean, if you hadn’t, that day, who knows – this would probably not have happened.” She gestures around the tent, then gives Helena the tiniest of smirks. 

A smirk is an expression Helena hasn’t seen on Myka’s face before – an actual flirtation. It is so unexpected that Helena’s heart lurches a little. 

“And I can’t be sorry for that,” Myka ends. She leans forward and kisses Helena softly. When Helena deepens the kiss, Myka’s lips are salty still from the soup. 

A thought occurs to Helena and she breaks the kiss. “Is this okay, though? You said you wondered if you were ace, or aro, or both, and now…” She runs a nervous tongue across her lips, tracing what Myka just did. It doesn’t really mesh with asexual, does it? 

Myka sits back a little and drops her gaze. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that.” She sighs and flops fully into the futon’s backrest. “I was never quite sure if I was that, or just a… a late bloomer? Figured I’d just roll with it as long as it didn’t become a problem, and it never really did. When everyone started kissing, dating, hooking up – I just… I didn’t…” She shrugs. “I just wasn’t interested. A few people asked – not many, because of the whole bookworm nerd thing – and I said I didn’t want to, and after a while I wasn’t asked anymore. Which suited me fine, because this was high school and I really wanted to focus on getting good grades, you know? Kinda necessary if you want to go to a good college. And if you want to be the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it’s gotta be Yale, or Harvard. Possibly Columbia. So I needed the best grades. And that meant focusing on studying, not on… romance.”

“So…” Helena is unsure what that means for them, for now. “So is this… detrimental? Should we stop?” She doesn’t want to. She really, really doesn’t. Now that she’s talked _herself_ out of ending this, the thought that _Myka_ might call it off makes her blood run cold.

Myka gives her a disarmingly helpless smile. “I don’t actually know,” she admits. “Judging from what I’ve seen with others, and from how difficult it was to concentrate today, it’s not gonna _help_. But…” she blushes and hangs her head. “Right now, I don’t care.”

“No, Myka,” Helena protests. “That’s… I… don’t want to derail your plan.” At least Myka has one. And it is ambitious as anything Helena has ever heard – Ivy League, she knew about; you couldn’t know Myka for any length of time and _not_ know it. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a new detail. It’s a name Helena has come across before, but can’t quite place. A politician? A senator, maybe? “That’s the last thing I’d want.” She has to force herself to say it, but she wills the statement to be true nevertheless. And for part of her, it is. She just needs to focus on that part.

Myka gives a heartfelt sigh, tugs her hair tie out of her bun again and ruffles her hair free. The nose wiggle makes another appearance but doesn’t bring the glasses up Myka’s nose high enough, so she pushes them into the right spot with her finger. Then she leans back against the futon and blows out her breath. “I know I should care. I know that. I’ve worked so hard last year. But one reason why I did was so that I could slow down a little this year, you know? Have a bit less of study time, a bit more time to myself. Even with working on my application,” she adds with a self-deprecating roll of her eyes. “So I _think_ I can afford this? Anyway, I want to,” she adds fiercely. “I’ve never felt like this before, and I want to keep feeling like this. I want to _try_. If you’re okay with that.” The last part, she says with a look of hopefulness that Helena couldn’t turn down even if she wanted to. And part of her does, but she does not heed it; she can’t, not when Myka looks like that.

So Helena nods. 

It’s not like she doesn’t want this, after all. She does. She’s just scared. 

Myka seems to pick up on that. “Are you really okay with that?”

“Bit scared,” Helena says with an apologetic smile. 

“Yeah, you did say.” Myka holds out her hand, and Helena takes it. Physical contact is reassuring, is nice. “And I can’t really say I’m not nervous, too, so… So let’s… let’s get used to this. To each other. I mean, Pete said to go out dating, but that means people seeing us date, so… so if you want to, we can just hang out up here. Just the two of us. Get to know each other. That’s what dating is all about, right? From what I understand, anyway.”

Helena laughs a little, at that last self-deprecating addition. “I suppose, yes. So… shall we, then? Get to know each other?”

Myka nods. “Lets.”

They stare at each other for a moment in complete silence. This time, it’s Myka who laughs first. 

“Look at us go,” Helena says dryly. 

“I have an idea,” Myka says, pulling out her phone. “Let’s search for questions to get to know each other, and go with those? The ones we feel comfortable answering, anyway?”

“Why not?” Helena replies with a smile, leaning back into the futon. Then she looks at Myka, head askance. “Would you mind if I kicked off my shoes and put up my feet?” she asks. “In the interest of getting more comfortable?” she adds with a bit of a grin.

“Feel right at home,” Myka grins back, gesturing invitingly towards the table. She stacks the two bowls to make space on it, then tosses one of the pillows in the free spot and toes off her own sneakers. 

It is indeed more comfortable, even if their feet nudge one another as they stack them on the pillow. 

“Okay, found a page,” Myka says, looking at her phone. “How about I pick a question and answer it, like, up front. Then you can answer it if you feel okay about it, and then you pick the next question?”

“Sounds good,” Helena nods. Her stomach is happily full, the rain is still pattering onto the roof, the room is warm but not too hot – she feels ready. Then a thought comes to her. “Just… no questions about my parents? Or previous… uh, relationships?”

“Of course,” Myka says immediately. “I wouldn’t have.”

“Anything _you_ want _me_ to steer clear of? Your father, I assume?”

Myka nods. “Yeah, I guess.”

Helena gives her a mock salute. “Noted. Now hit me.”

Myka giggles, then lifts her phone to her eyes. “Okay,” she murmurs slowly as she scrolls through the questions. Then she stops and nods. “Alright, here we go: what is an activity you absolutely love doing? And my answer to that is: reading.”

“Same,” Helena says immediately. They grin at each other. Then Helena says, “Not really a surprise there, is it. So how about – say that you have the option to do whatever you want to do, but it _can’t_ be reading. What’s your pick? Mine would be…” for a moment, she debates explaining how she feels about music, getting lost in herself playing the piano. But it doesn’t feel right, not yet, so instead she says, “Taking apart a car. An old, fully mechanic one. To see how it works and what part does what.”

“Whoa,” Myka says, eyes round. “That’s… something I would _not_ have guessed. You always look so… I don’t know; elegant? It’s hard to imagine you elbow-deep in grease.”

Helena lifts an eyebrow. ‘Elegant’? “Just goes to show,” she says, “that we both have a need to get to know each other.” She nods her chin at Myka. “What’s your answer, then?”

Myka hums and taps her fingers to her chin as she thinks. “Puzzles,” she says then. “All kinds. Solving them, putting things into their proper place. So satisfying.”

“That’s why you like working in the library?”

Myka nods. “Yeah. That, and having access to more books than just the ones my dad stores.” She gives Helena a brief smile, then goes through the list again. “What is your favorite time of day? Mine’s morning. I am absolutely a morning person.”

Helena gives a brief snort. “You know, even only last month I would have said morning, too,” she says. “I’ve always been an early riser. But ever since coming here, it’s been just so bloody _hard_ to get out of bed. It can’t be jetlag anymore; I wonder if it’s something in the food, or perhaps I sleep badly because things are so different, but… I can’t rightly call myself a morning person anymore, unfortunately. So I’ll say night instead, when the stars are out. I like looking at them; they are much clearer here, did you know?” Myka shakes her head no, and Helena nods confirmation and then holds out her hand for Myka’s phone. Her eyes rove the questions as she scrolls further down, then alight on one. “Oh, this one seems fun: what quirks do you have? You already know the ‘unable to sleep when someone’s there’ one, so I’ll give you another: I always have to have a bit of all the components of a meal in each bite I take. I can’t abide having only vegetables left over at the end, or only meat. Or the last bite of a burrito that’s only tortilla and sauce.”

“That’s odd,” Myka says.

“Well, it is supposed to be a quirk,” Helena points out, eyebrow raised. 

Myka grins. “I guess. Well, let’s see…” her expression turns more serious, and she hesitates a moment before saying, “I, um… have this massive fear of, uh… of tentacles. Phobia, really. Like, I just, I ca-can’t. I freeze up, can’t breathe, all that. Just the… the way they move, I… I can’t.” 

She does sound as if the mere thought of it is choking her, so Helena quickly nods her understanding. “Duly noted,” she says, just to make sure she gets the point across. “I’m like that with trusting in technology that I don’t understand. My parents tell me I was a nightmare on every single flight they took me on, until one day a person seated next to me explained how planes stay up in the air. After that, everything was fine. These days, as I understand more about laws of nature, it’s more medicine-related – the thought of anesthesia, for example, completely weirds me out.” She shudders. “Doesn’t help when I read that doctors themselves don’t really understand how it works, they just know how to apply it.”

“Huh.” Myka nods slowly. “I didn’t know that. About anesthesia, I mean. Thanks for telling me, though. I’ll keep it in mind. And if you ever need to go to the hospital, I’ll just come with you, watch over you, okay?” She smiles at Helena, and Helena quickly returns it – the simple statement warms her heart. Then Myka takes the phone back and browses through some more questions. “Oh, here’s an interesting one,” she says with a small frown. “It’s… well, it could be a bit personal, I guess, depending on your take on it. So if you don’t feel comfortable answering-”

“Out with it,” Helena says. “If I can tailor my reply, I’m not worried.” She’s already told Myka her greatest fear; what could be more personal than that?

“Okay,” Myka says, then inhales deeply. “Here goes – what do you hope never changes in your life?” She lets the phone sink and looks at Helena. “Don’t get this wrong now – hear me out till the end, okay?”

She looks very serious, and Helena nods. 

“I hope I never lose Pete’s friendship,” Myka says, and then immediately adds, “Please let me explain?”

Helena does feel jealous, but that’s probably what Myka meant. She can be patient. She _will_ be patient. She nods again. 

“Pete and I have been friends since kindergarten. I’ve spent just as much time in his house as I have at home. His mom, and his dad too before he died, were like a second set of parents to me. They always had a kind word for me, always encouraged me. My dad always has something to criticize, no matter what I do. I think he thinks it’s necessary to prepare me for the world or something, but… it’s nice, you know, every now and then, to just get a ‘well done’ from someone? And I got far more of those from Pete’s parents than I ever did from mine. And Pete always has my back. I can rely on him blind, no matter what. And it’s- Helena, what’s wrong?”

Over the course of Myka’s words, Helena’s throat has constricted and her sight has begun to blur, and now she’s just this side of crying, and it’s really hard to breathe. She shakes her head wordlessly, and when Myka reaches out to her, Helena scrambles upright and turns away. If Myka touches her now, she’ll burst into tears, and she can’t. 

Just goes to show; never _ever_ think ‘what could be worse’.

“Helena?”

From the angle of her voice, Myka has gotten up, too. Helena shakes her head again and wraps her arms more tightly around herself, trying to take the kind of breath that calms rather than agitates, but it’s hard, so hard when you just _yearn._

“O- okay,” Myka says hesitantly. “I’ll, uh… I’ll give you a moment.”

Helena doesn’t hear any steps over the sound of the rain, but she does hear the rustling of heavy fabric – then nothing. Blessed nothing, except the rain. She lets the white noise of it fill her brain, until it washes away what Myka just said and leaves behind familiar hollow sadness. 

Yes, familiar. It’s not like she hasn’t been longing for this kind of acceptance since she was old enough to realize that some kids had it and she didn’t. 

It’s moments like this when missing Aunt Tee, the only one who Helena ever felt this kind of trust from and towards, feels like a black hole inside of her. 

She’s on her own. 

‘Well, that’s no longer true, anyway,’ her memory says in Myka’s voice. ‘You’re part of us now,’ Myka had said, and that Helena has a place here if she wanted to.

And she does want to; oh, does she ever want to. But she’s still scared. And she sent Myka away so as not to cry and here she is, crying anyway.

Part of her wants to just leave. 

Just leave. 

Chances are her A-levels are shot anyway; what’s the point of trying to juggle them and AP classes and extracurriculars like a good little girl when she doesn’t even know what for?

What’s the point of feeling like _this_ when she’ll be leaving again in eight months anyway?

There’s a scraping noise at her feet. She looks down and sees a small folded piece of paper being pushed in underneath the curtain.

She stares at it for a full minute, gulping and just… just breathing, before picking it up and unfolding it. 

It’s a hasty pencil sketch; a stick figure with long straight hair and a sad face, thick dark clouds above it with rain coming from them in thin parallel lines, and above the clouds, the sun. 

There’s another scraping noise, and Helena looks up from the sketch to see, in the same spot where the paper was pushed through-

An umbrella.

A small folding one, but: an honest-to-god umbrella.

What _else_ has Myka Bering stashed up here?

It makes Helena smile – in disbelief, true, but it’s a smile, and it feels better than hollow sadness, that much is certain. She kneels down and tugs at the umbrella, and a hand appears still clasped around the handle. 

“I come with the whole thing, you know,” Myka Bering says from outside the curtain. “Package deal.”

Helena continues to tug, at the hair tie around the wrist attached to the hand holding the umbrella.

“I’d rather have an enthusiastic ‘yes’ than interpret your silence as consent,” Myka continues, now from closer to the curtain. “But I’ll take what I get.”

Helena chuckles, but it comes out weird, a hiccup more than a chuckle; a sob more than a hiccup. 

Still she tugs. 

Myka’s head and shoulders slide in underneath the curtain. It takes her a while, upside down as they both are to each other, to realize what’s going on on Helena’s face, then she scrambles to her knees and wraps her arms around Helena. “It’s okay,” she says, “it’s okay.”

Helena’s arms hang down; she can’t bring herself to hug Myka back, it would mean acknowledging the embrace and its reason, and she can’t do either. The umbrella is trapped between their legs, poking and uncomfortable, but Myka’s embrace is the polar opposite of that and Helena doesn’t want it to loosen for one fraction of an inch or second. After a few moments, though, Myka eases them down off of their knees and into sitting on the floor, and somewhere within that move, the umbrella is cast aside. 

Myka’s hand lands on Helena’s hair again, just like earlier, stroking hesitantly, almost clumsily, and in the end it’s that clumsiness and hesitancy that allows Helena to open her fists and grasp the back of Myka’s shirt, allows her to open her mouth and tell Myka why she’s crying. 

“My aunt – great-aunt – died last year. She… _she_ made me feel like that, and she was the only one who did. Who cared. About me. My parents never did, for them it’s always only about how they can make parade me around, their precious darling daughter, especially since my brother left. He’s… he’s five years older than me, and the moment he could, he was gone. Can’t say I blame him,” Helena adds, feeling just as forlorn as she did back when she realized Charles was gone for good. “We both were… props for them. Just… just props. You have to have kids, and they have to be a certain way. Well-mannered, good grades, seen not heard except for piano or violin. Music was Charles’ outlet; he’s a genius but my parents wanted him to study business. He tried, and it almost killed him. Literally. He had friends who found him in time, and they made him leave home and… his family, and I understand why he did, I’m glad that he got out, but…” she falls silent against Myka’s shoulder. It takes her a while before she can go on. “He said that he was sorry, and that he had to cut himself off completely, couldn’t stay in contact with me as long as I was still with our parents, in order to protect himself – and I… I get that, it just… and then Aunt Tee died, and-” she has to stop.

Myka’s arms tighten around her. “I’m so, so sorry,” she says quietly.

“I guess I could call him now,” Helena says after a moment, sniffing and wiping her face. “This does qualify as ‘no longer with my parents’, right?” She digs through her pockets for a tissue and blows her nose. 

“You kinda got out too, yeah,” Myka says. 

Helena blinks. She hadn’t even thought of it that way. “I… suppose? They still pay for all this, though,” she adds. “When I turn eighteen, I’ll get some money Aunt Tee left me, but until then I wouldn’t say I’m completely free of them.”

“When’s that?”

“Hm? Oh. January. Fourth,” she adds.

“Bit more than three months,” Myka says with an encouraging little smile. “That sounds doable.”

For a moment, they just sit. Helena’s breaths calm down, and she relaxes into Myka’s embrace.

Then Myka leans back a little, and says almost wistfully, “Eighteen. Are you excited? It’s gonna be weird, I think, turning eighteen. Like, I am not sure I feel like an adult. You?”

It’s a very obvious attempt to steer the conversation elsewhere, but that doesn’t make it any less welcome. Helena feels herself relaxing into it. “To be honest, the one thing I’m focusing on is that inheritance fund.” She makes a disgusted face at her words. “God, that sounded awful.”

“No, no, I get it,” Myka replies quickly. “It’s your parents who sound awful, okay? I don’t blame you for wanting to escape that, and you can’t really do that without money. I know how good it felt when I started earning money for myself. Knowing that it was mine, unequivocally, to spend on whatever I want, you know?” She hums with satisfaction. “Seemed more of a milestone than turning eighteen, somehow. I mean okay, I can go vote, that’s cool; I am looking forward to that. But earning my own money? Enough to have a car, go where I want? That makes me feel independent, you know?”

Helena tries for a returning smile, to acknowledge Myka’s attempts at changing the topic to something more wholesome. But she knows she’s failing at it, and her thoughts won’t be so easily distracted. “Not having had either milestone,” she says, “I really couldn’t say I know, no.” 

Myka’s face falls. “Sorry.”

Helena shrugs again. Tries her own change of topic. “It doesn’t matter too much. I think my first milestone was getting drunk, to be honest.”

“Drunk!” Myka sounds appalled. 

Right – Americans. “No minimum age for drinking in private,” Helena explains with a sigh, “and when you’re accompanied by someone over eighteen, you can even drink in pubs, as long as it’s with a meal. Believe me, plenty of kids I know, including me, have been drunk at least once by age sixteen. I did not enjoy the experience, but then I wasn’t doing it for enjoyment. I was doing it to annoy my parents.” She grimaces. “Seems stupid, now that I put it in words. I like to think it made sense at the time, but I suspect it didn’t even then. Anyway, haven’t really done it since. I know how to hold my liquor, because you need to – not drinking is not really an option. I suppose in a way, _not_ getting drunk when everyone does their best to _get_ you drunk is a better milestone.”

Myka still looks slightly uneasy. “I guess.” She swallows. Shudders slightly. “I tried beer once, and _ugh_. Like, how can anyone enjoy drinking that?”

“Don’t ask me,” Helena says. “Like I said, I was doing it to annoy my parents. And because everyone else was.”

“Christ,” Myka mutters and shakes her head. 

They sit in silence for a while. Then Helena makes another foray. “So when do you turn eighteen?” 

“March thirteen,” Myka replies. 

Helena makes a mental note, then asks, “Already got a party planned?”

Myka snorts. “Not really. I might be celebrating being accepted into college, if I don’t get in via early decision, but… I’m not big on birthdays. They’re not really a thing in my family.” 

Helena takes note of that, too. “Fair,” she says. 

“Speaking of parties, though,” Myka continues, then frowns a little and shakes her head. “Well, it’s not really a party, but this Saturday is movie night at Pete’s. Every other Saturday, except week before last Pete had a training camp he needed to be at. We watch two movies, and eat pizza in between. Steve and Leena, Josh and Claudia, the whole gang. D’you wanna come?”

Helena hesitates. “Won’t the others mind if you just bring me along?”

Myka shakes her head very decisively. “Heck no. I’m actually kinda wondering why Leena hasn’t mentioned it to you.”

Helena suddenly remembers something and flushes. There’s a text on her phone that she hasn’t replied to, from Leena. “She did ask if I had any plans on Saturday,” Helena says. “Yesterday. I just haven’t replied yet. I… forgot.” Her blush deepens. “Was a bit… distracted.”

Myka grins at her, and then it softens into that small smile that, by now, Helena knows is for between them, and them alone. “Well, there you go, then. All good.”

Helena smiles back. “All good,” she repeats. “I’ll let her know tonight or if I don’t see her, tomorrow at breakfast.”

“So you’re coming?” Myka’s smile widens into an excited grin again, and Helena can’t help but reciprocate. 

“I’d love to.”

Myka looks… _giddy_. There is no other word to describe it, Helena thinks. Giddy with joy, at the prospect of Helena joining her and her friends for two movies and pizza. 

It’s a breathtaking thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://twitter.com/PurlTurtle/status/1310174709343023105?s=20
> 
> I made this ramen the other day, and tweeted about it, including pictorial evidence. Find it under the above link (I hope this works! Link posted on Sep 20 2020.)


	10. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'll be getting a flurry of chapters this week: two today, one tomorrow, two on Thursday! \o/ Gluttony! Abundance! General rejoicing! \o/ (Have fun reading!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: being outed against one's will, being falsely accused of sexual assault.

Myka feels amazing on Saturday, eating pizza and watching the first two Marvel Cinematic Universe movies with her best friends and Helena, and then awful on Monday when Leena tells them in homeroom that Helena seems to have caught a stomach bug somehow, even though no one else did, and has been puking all day Sunday. Steve argues that Helena might not have been used to the sheer amount of melted cheese on American pizza, and that sounds logical enough. There was definitely more cheese on that pizza than Myka put in the ramen bowls. 

Pete wheedles some card stock out of his mom’s office supplies and fashions a get-well card that they all sign and hand to Leena to pass on, and Myka is extra diligent taking notes in class. She takes pictures of all of them after each class and sends them to Helena, and asks Claudia to do the same for calculus and comp sci, the two classes she doesn’t share with Helena but Claudia does. 

The illness seems to linger; Helena doesn’t return the next day either, and Leena explains that Mrs. F doesn’t want the bug to spread in school. 

Melted cheese doesn’t do that, though, does it? But when Myka googles, she finds out that moving continents can make your immune system go haywire until it adapts, so it might be a bug after all; who knows. She’s certain that Helena’s feeling wretched, and probably bad for missing out on class, so she keeps it up with her notes and pesters Claudia just a little bit to do the same. 

It’s not like Myka can’t use the time she now has – she needs to work some more on her essay, fill out her FAFSA form as much as she can, follow up with the teachers she’s asked for recommendation letters (she’s still missing the most important one, from Mr. Nielsen) and check in with the admin office for her transcript. It’s very satisfactory to tick things off her list; it somehow feels like mini milestones too. 

Applying for college. 

Yale, no less – for early decision, anyway, since you can only apply to one place on that round. 

It feels a bit odd to know that if she’s accepted, it probably won’t be on her merits alone but also because Yale’s looking to diversify their student body by accepting students from lower income families. Myka both does and doesn’t care – if this is what gets her in, it’s what gets her in, but… it doesn’t sit right. Then again, that’s one of the things she wants to change, and the best way to do that is, at this point in time, studying at the best college; there really isn’t any way around that yet.

So she swallows her misgivings and doubles down on her work, and the week after, most of Myka’s October to-do’s have been ticked off and Helena is back in class.

And Myka feels like she’s flying again. Things just click into place; her school workload is manageable, working in the library is nice as always, even working in the bookstore is okay. And Helena – they just click, too. Conversation comes easy even when it doesn’t, because for every awkward Myka moment it seems there’s an awkward Helena moment too, and that’s reassuring. They can talk about everything from favorite authors to why Myka thinks the justice system needs an overhaul, or why Helena feels uncomfortable about her parents getting rich off other people’s money. And if they don’t talk, they just _are_ with each other, and that’s amazing too.

If it wasn’t for the ever-more-looming prospect of introducing Helena to her parents, even as only a friend, things would be perfect. But her mom has asked more than once to meet this new friend, and she’s giving Myka _looks_ now; looks that precede, in Myka’s experience, an ‘I know you’re no longer eight years old, sweetheart, but I am still your mother’ kind of talk, and she’d rather forego that if at all possible. 

“Just ask H.G. to come to my meet, then,” Pete says, Monday before homeroom, when Myka vents her frustration to him.

She stares at him, but the more she thinks about it, the better of an idea it seems. Pete’s first wrestling meet is this Wednesday, and it’s a long-standing tradition that Myka’s parents come to _his_ first match just like Jane used to come to Myka’s first fencing tournament of the season – until now, that is. And even though Myka isn’t fencing this year, her parents are still going to come to support Pete; they’ve already said so. So yeah, Helena could come, seeing as she’s Pete’s friend now too, and Leena and Steve and Claudia and Josh will all be there-

“Perfect,” Myka says, and tries to poke Pete’s biceps. 

He jumps back with a yelp. “No bruises, Mykes,” he whines, “I need to be in prime shape!”

She just rolls her eyes and goes to find Helena and ask her. 

“Pete’s what?” Helena sounds dubious.

“Wrestling meet,” Myka explains. “Two high school teams competing against each other; it’s Wednesday afternoon. It’s the first of the season, and that means my…” her voice flips and she stops and clears her throat. “My parents will be there. It’s a tradition. And I think if you meet them there it’ll be better, easier than you coming over for dinner or something like that. You know? They’ll be distracted; you wouldn’t be the focus.” Myka suddenly realizes something. “Unless… you want to be?”

“Heavens no,” Helena quickly waves that one off. “No, you’re right, that would suit me excellently. Even if it means an evening of watching sweaty guys rolling around on each other in public,” she adds with a wry sigh. Then her face grows slightly annoyed, and she touches Myka’s wrist. “Sorry, I have to go to the bathroom – no, don’t worry,” she adds quickly, _“that_ spell is over, knock on wood. I just need to… you know. Relieve myself. I am _not_ used to how much water you Americans insist people drink.” And she’s off, ponytail dancing after her. Myka stares after her with a mix of anxiety and triumph – Wednesday. Helena will meet her parents on Wednesday. 

“Yo, Mykes,” Claudia says, heading towards Myka out of nowhere and pulling her off to the side. Then she drops her voice. “Listen, you gotta tone it down with the googly eyes, you know? Unless you’re ready to announce things.”

“Things?” Myka feels panicked. “What things? There are no things. To announce. In any way.”

Claudia shoots her a long, level look. “Sure, Captain Obvious. That’s why you went after me for verbatim notes, too. Totally normal. Nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever.”

Myka grits her teeth. This isn’t Claudia’s fault; if anything, it’s hers, Myka’s. “Alright. I heard you. I’ll take it under advisement. Not that, you know…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Claudia sighs. “No things to be announced. In any way. I heard you too. _Obviously_ I’m seeing par-Mach in all the wrong places, Captain. Anyway, see you at lunch.” And she heads off too.

Myka bites her lip and resolves to bring this up to Helena later. 

Tuesdays and Thursdays are becoming their thing. Her parents have said that Myka can come home late on those days – late as in ‘after dinner’ – since Helena and her are learning together on those days. They’re not, technically, not _that_ late, but her parents don’t need to know that – if that’s what _they_ imply from how Myka has asked-

Okay, she doesn’t feel proud of the way she’s set this up, but it’s hard to care when she and Helena can spend _two whole entire evenings each week_ together in the attic, talking, kissing, just being with each other. 

There is nothing Myka would rather do. 

There are some things she wants to do _on top of that,_ though. Kissing Helena is amazing, flat-out, no-two-ways-about-it _amazing_ – and Myka wants to take it further. And that thought in and of itself is pretty breathtaking for someone who barely two months ago thought of herself as Not Interested in All That. Now she’s having _dreams_ about it. But the thing is – she has no idea how to… initiate that. And Helena seems perfectly fine just kissing. And she’s said that she’s a bit worried, that she wants to take this slow, that she’s had something like this before and it went badly, and Myka has promised that she doesn’t want this to go badly, on the contrary, and just how fast is too fast? 

She can’t ask Pete this. Like, okay, relationship advice _maybe,_ but this is flat-out… well, sex advice, in so many words, right? And she can’t- she really can’t ask Pete that. His head would explode, because which guy’s head wouldn’t explode over a girl wanting to take things further with a girl. Or he’d be grossed out because he and Myka are like brother and sister, and you don’t really ask your brother for sex advice. Or it’d be a mix of both, and his mental capacity isn’t large enough for that. 

Google is no help either. Go as fast as feels comfortable, and communicate, is what Myka finds there. 

Communicate! As if it was that easy!

Every day that they climb the ladder, Myka tells herself to _communicate,_ but then she’s looking into those brown eyes and kissing happens or talking happens – but talking isn’t communicating.

“Is something wrong?” Helena asks, this Tuesday, when they finally settle on the futon. She’s brought a _tea kettle_ with her today, and a box of bagged English Breakfast tea and two mugs and _sugar cubes;_ bought it all on the weekend to have up here, she explains primly. It’s been so easy to poke fun at her for it, but Myka’s thoughts are preoccupied, and Helena has noticed, because they know each other that well by now. 

Communicate. Myka takes a deep breath. “Two things,” she says, if only to hold herself accountable. She clears her throat. “One: after you left to go to the bathroom earlier, Claudia told me to tone down my googly eyes or quote-unquote announce things.” Helena winces, and Myka immediately feels bad. Heat rises in her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I should have… Helena, I promise, I really thought I was more… circumspect.”

Helena ponders this for a while, then sighs and props her head into her hands. “Can’t be helped,” she says. “At least it’s only Claudia. I haven’t noticed anyone say anything or act weirdly, so I suppose we’re still safe.”

“I’m sorry,” Myka says again. “I’ll do better. I will.” She needs to, for Helena’s sake. 

Helena nods. “Thank you. Me too.” She gives Myka a small, tight smile. “Can’t rightly claim I’ve never cast googly eyes your way, you know.”

Myka smiles back. Then, remembering that she has her second point still to make, she takes a determined breath. “There’s something else.” 

“Ah,” Helena says, leaning back. “Yes, you said.” She’s looking slightly worried now. 

Communication, Myka reminds herself. Open, enthusiastic consent. Which a person can only give when they know what’s being asked. 

Why is this so hard?

Her heart is beating in her throat; her palms are sweaty and so is the bridge of her nose, and that makes her glasses slide. Myka pushes them up, trying to surreptitiously rub her nose dry in the process. “I… I know we’re going slow,” she says. “And that’s good,” she adds quickly. “I want you to feel comfortable, and I want to feel comfortable too. And… and kissing is definitely comfortable. I mean. Much, _much_ more than just comfortable.” And she’s rambling. Four ‘comfortables’? That’s rambling.

Helena’s expression goes from slightly worried to definitely uneasy. “Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”

“It’s just…” Myka bites her lip. “I’m just… curious? How other things would feel. Um. And I don’t want to push you in any way, I…”

Helena’s her eyes are wide and dark. “Myka…” Her voice is low – very low. Like, hungry, somehow. It does things to Myka; it takes Myka’s thoughts places. But then Helena visibly pulls herself together. Clears her throat. “I can’t… can’t say I haven’t been thinking about it,” she says, and even though she says it calmly, with none of the breathiness of how she said Myka’s name, it still makes Myka break out in shivers. “And I hate that _I’m_ bringing a ‘but’ into this now, but...” she drops her gaze and bites her lower lip. “Myka, I can’t. And I’m truly sorry, and I want to… believe me, I _want_ to, but I… can’t. Can’t we… can we continue the way things were, just a bit longer? Please?”

“Yeah,” Myka says immediately, and tries very hard not to be disappointed. Helena truly needs this, she can see it, and she can do what Helena needs. “Yeah, absolutely.”

“Just for a while longer,” Helena goes on. “I promise I’m not leading you on, Myka, please, I-”

“What? No!” Myka shakes her head wildly. “No, I know. I know that. Christ, no, don’t worry. No, this is totally fine. I mean we’ve known each other for, what, five weeks? And last week doesn’t even count; I didn’t see you at all.”

Helena smiles at that. “You did send me a lot of messages,” she says. “I still have a bit of a bad conscience for not replying to all of them.”

“You were sick,” Myka points out, with a smile of her own. 

“Nevertheless.” Helena’s eyes grow inward for a moment, then she groans. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I need to go to the bathroom again. Lord, I hope I haven’t caught an infection on top of everything else.”

“Ugh, yeah, that would suck,” Myka says, with feeling. 

She feels kinda proud as she watches Helena work the latch and lower the ladder – Helena is well on her way to knowing her way around this place as well as Myka does. It feels _right_ to share the attic with her, simply right, even though Myka would never have considered showing it to anyone before. But Helena isn’t just anyone. This is quickly growing beyond a crush, even if Myka isn’t sure what other word to attach to this. ‘Dating’ kind of fits, but only if you define their time up here as dates, which… maybe? Myka isn’t sure. ‘Girlfriend’ isn’t something you use without asking the other person first, and that is a conversation she isn’t sure how to pull off just now. ‘Friend with benefits’ sounds completely off; she won’t even consider it. The big L-word is way too big. 

Or is it?

Myka shakes her head to get rid of the thought. Five weeks; not even. This is way too early. 

It feels a bit odd to be by herself up here. She looks around her tent – Helena is calling it that; Myka has never called it anything before, so ‘tent’ it is – and shakes her head, at herself this time. At how quickly Helena’s presence up here has become the new normal. Would Helena like to come up here by herself and just read, or do homework or study, the way Myka does sometimes?

But she can’t. 

Only Myka has the key to the Staff Only door, and Helena can’t have that key. She’s not staff. And Jane doesn’t need more staff. 

But it would be such a nice gesture, wouldn’t it, to hand Helena a key of her own so she can come up here whenever she wanted, and not just when she’s with Myka? 

But Staff Only means staff only. Rules are rules for a reason. 

Myka sighs, just as Helena’s head pops back through the hatch. “Why the sigh?” Helena asks, climbing up fully. 

Myka makes a startled noise. “Oh, just… just thinking how nice it would be if you could come up here on your own,” she says, too surprised to make something up.

Helena closes the hatch and advances on Myka with downcast eyes. “I…” she clears her throat. “I can, actually. Technically.”

Myka blinks. “You what.”

Helena is looking anywhere but at Myka now. “Mrs. Lattimer gave me a key. Earlier, when you were returning books to the shelves.”

Myka grows cold. “Wh- But…” Jane _knows?!_ “Did Pete-”

Helena quickly shakes her head, looking up to meet Myka’s eyes. “She specifically said he didn’t tattle. Said she figured it out on her own. Said to tell you not to worry; she doesn’t mind and she won’t tell on us either. And she also said that _if_ you were okay with it, I could use this key, for this door only. She made me promise to ask, and… I suppose here I am, asking,” she finishes with a hopeful smile.

Myka stares at her for a moment longer, then laughs helplessly. “Okay,” she says, drawing out the word as her thoughts try to parse this new development. “I didn’t even know Jane knew about… about this place. I mean… I mean I _was_ thinking about how to get you access just now, but…” She breaks off and rubs her forehead. “We really need to be more careful. Claudia _and_ Jane. That’s not good.” 

Helena grits her teeth. “Agreed.” Then her eyebrows pull together and she tilts her head. “But are you okay with me having the key to your attic? Truly okay with it?”

“Yes,” Myka says emphatically. “Yes, I am.”

“But this is your place,” Helena protests in a whisper. 

“Mi casa es tu casa,” Myka shrugs. “My attic is your attic; my friends are your friends. Helena, I am absolutely sure. I want to share this with you, and I want you to be part of the gang.”

“Just like Iron Man is part of the Avengers,” Helena says quietly. 

“Exactly,” Myka affirms. 

It’s been made official last Saturday: Pete has always fancied himself Captain America, and has always told Myka she was like the Hulk, all science-y and collected until you put her in fencing gear (and, okay yes, saber is a pretty violent weapon, but it’s also fun to explode into that violence, and maybe there’s something to Pete’s idea?). Steve is Thor, ‘always worthy, and the same smile’ according to Pete, and Leena is Nick Fury, ‘not because you’re black but because you’re the genius in the background pulling all the strings.’ Claudia has claimed Black Widow, and Josh kept refusing to be Iron Man, on the grounds of not being a Tony-Stark-like person, which is fair enough. So, last Saturday, Josh pointed to Helena saying _she’d_ make an ideal Iron Man (or woman), and he’d take leftover Hawkeye instead. 

Helena laughed, at first, until she realized that everyone was nodding. And even then she made light of it, as if she didn’t really believe they were serious. Granted, she hasn’t known them all that long; she can’t know how serious this is to Pete at the very least. He did change her handle in the group chat to ‘H.G. Stark’, but maybe Helena hasn’t noticed that yet?

“I want you to feel at home,” Myka adds, to spell it out more clearly than Josh and Pete have, “to feel like you belong. Because from where I stand, you do. Okay?” 

Tears shoot into Helena’s eyes, and she turns aside. Myka lets go of her hand and takes a step back, just in case, but Helena reaches out blindly, and Myka obliges and returns, because how could she not? Helena’s fingers clamp around Myka’s like a vise, but Helena makes no other move, and Myka obliges again, staying where she is. She doesn’t really know what else to do, but it seems to be the right thing, and she just hopes it’s enough. 

There isn’t a pattern that Myka can make out yet in what Helena wants Myka to do when she’s crying, but there _is_ one in what _makes_ her cry; it’s as if she can’t believe that someone would want her to be friends, to be with her, for her to belong, and it is _heart-wrenching._ For all of Myka’s family’s shortcomings, she’s never felt like she didn’t belong with them or was on her own in this world, and she can’t imagine how lonely it has to feel for Helena to not be able to believe-

It’s moments like these that Myka wants to rage at the universe – Helena’s parents, mostly, but the rest of it too – for allowing something like this to happen. 

People should have that. People should have somewhere they belonged, someone to belong with. Multiple someones. And they should know it, and be safe and secure in that knowledge. 

People shouldn’t cry when they realize that someone wants them to belong. 

People shouldn’t feel lost. Not like this.

With one last, shuddering breath, Helena turns to Myka, and Myka sees that the tears didn’t make it out past Helena’s lashes. But it’s still crying; still heart-wrenching. 

“Sorry,” Helena says with an apologetic little shrug. 

“Please don’t be,” Myka says. “Please. You can cry whenever you want, whenever you need, okay? And I’ll do whatever you want me to do to help. Holding hands,” she squeezes Helena’s fingers slightly, “hugs, whatever. Just let me know.”

Helena presses her lips together and looks down, opens her mouth and shuts it again. 

“Yeah?” Myka prompts her, in an attempt to help.

“I…” Helena is biting her lower lip again. She does so quite often, in contexts like this; it’s another pattern, and Myka hasn’t quite figured out its meaning yet. 

She takes a halfway educated guess and holds out her arm, offering a hug, and Helena slowly moves into it. 

There we go, Myka thinks with satisfaction. Then she focuses on holding Helena tight.

They’ve hugged often enough by now that Helena’s scent is becoming familiar. That thought is heart-warming and as such, much more welcome than any heart-wrenching ponderings. Myka hopes that it’s the same for Helena, that she’s getting used to Myka too. Sure, getting used to something takes time, and Myka herself isn’t anywhere near used to hugging someone like this, but it’s a start, right? Every journey, single step, that kind of thing. 

“I was outed at my previous school,” Helena tells Myka’s shoulder all of a sudden.

Myka stiffens with anger. “Ugh. I’m sorry.”

Helena inhales deeply through her nose. “I… would like to tell you what happened,” she says. “I’d also like to sit down for it, though.”

“Of course.”

Moments later, they’re on the futon. Helena has settled down a bit apart from Myka, knees pressed together and hands wedged between them. She looks supremely uncomfortable. “Hey,” Myka says, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to. If it’s too hard or anything. Really.”

Helena sighs, tugs her hair free from its ponytail and runs a hand through it, then clamps both her hands between her knees. Her shoulders are hunched, but her face is determined. “I want to. I want you to understand.”

“Okay.” Myka sits up straighter and turns fully towards Helena, giving her her full attention. The ponytail dissolving kind of distracted her a little bit, but this is serious and she needs to focus.

Helena smiles at her in return, then grows somber again. “It started this January,” she says. “There was a girl in my class; Giselle. She kissed me on a dare, during a game of spin the bottle.” She rolls her eyes and adds, “Cliché, I know, but that’s how it happened. A few days later, she caught me in an empty corridor and asked if I wanted to kiss again. She said that nobody could know. I’d enjoyed the kiss, so I said yes – and yes I know now that I shouldn’t have, but she did seem genuinely into it, into me, and I’d known her for the whole year at that point; I didn’t think she would… do what she ended up doing.” A grimace crosses Helena’s face. “I thought I was a good judge of character, but with her, I was completely off.” She purses her lips for a moment, staring fixedly ahead, then goes on, “She did make it very clear that it was just to see what it felt like, for her. That she enjoyed kissing me and wanted more of it, but wasn’t looking for dating or feelings.” She shrugs. “And that was fine by me; I wasn’t, either. We kissed a few more times in school, then decided it was too dangerous; there weren’t any places we could hide in and be confident we wouldn’t be caught. So we told our parents we were revising together.” She does shoot Myka a short glance at that, with an apologetic shrug. 

Myka shrugs right back, and smiles for good measure. “Makes sense,” she says. “Go on.” She thinks she knows where this is going, and her heart is sinking fast.

“We made out,” Helena says, looking aside again. “A lot. And we both enjoyed it. I do think that Giselle was genuine in those moments. It was when we weren’t… doing it, that she had a problem with the whole thing. And in the end, a few months after it all began, when we went… all the way, she couldn’t handle it. Said that I’d seduced her into it, that I’d gone against her will, even though that was _not_ true. Started telling her friends the same thing. Didn’t take long for it to reach everyone, including the headmaster. I was suspended for a week. My parents were furious.”

Myka swallows. “Is that why…?”

Helena looks up at her with a quizzical look. 

“Why you’re here?” Myka finishes. 

“Oh! No.” Helena hangs her head and runs her fingers through her hair, tugging at the ends of it. “I suppose it didn’t help, but the actual reason was a different… matter. That came later.” She takes a deep breath. “At any rate, I was an outcast for the rest of that school year. Which would have been proper if I _had_ violated her, but I had not. But who’d believe the new kid?”

Myka grows cold, then flushes with anger. This had to be what Helena meant with people turning on her. “Shit, Helena, I am so, so sorry this happened to you. That’s awful.”

Helena’s jaw is working, then she presses out a “Quite.”

Then Myka realizes something else, and a chill run down her spine once more. This is what Helena is afraid of. She’s in the same situation again, isn’t she. Only this time, it’s with Myka. But Helena can’t know that Myka would never do that – five weeks, judge of character, all that. “And it’s not going to happen here, okay?” Myka says very firmly, trying to catch Helena’s eyes. “Helena, I promise. I’d never-”

“I know,” Helena says hastily. “I don’t know why or how, but I know. But…” she falls silent. Swallows. Opens her mouth a few times, as if to speak, and shuts it again. “But still I’m scared,” she says finally. “Because sometimes knowing something isn’t enough. The same way you can _know_ that the airplane you’re about to board is perfectly safe and well-constructed and tested, and still be scared to go on it. Because once you’re in and the doors are shut, it’s out of your hands what happens next, and there is a chance, however small, that things will go horribly wrong.” Now Helena reaches for Myka’s hands, and then clings on for dear life. “I know you’re not her. You’re nothing like her. You’ve been nothing but honest and… and honorable. Mrs. Frederic even told me you were a good friend to have.”

Myka blinks. “Mrs. Frederic-” She doesn’t know what to say.

Helena nods. “That first night you took me home,” she says. “And I doubt Mrs. Lattimer would have given me the key if she didn’t trust you as well as me.”

Once again, Myka is doing her best to parse all this. “I can kinda sense a ‘but’ coming,” she says at last. 

Helena gives her a shaky smile for the callback, then her face falls again. “This is why I want to- _need_ to take things slow. Why I…”

“Helena, it’s fine.” Myka squeezes both of Helena’s hands. “It really, really is. It was fine before you told me, and I appreciate you telling me because, yes, I understand better now, but I don’t need a reason, okay? I’m not… I said I don’t have a map for this, right? I don’t have a schedule either. I just… I just want you to be comfortable. To be happy. To be okay with what we’re doing.”

“You seemed-” Helena breaks off, biting furiously down on her lower lip. “Disappointed. Earlier.”

Myka flushes. Helena noticed. “I… okay, yeah,” she admits. “And I’m sorry about that. Gut reaction, I think? I mean I like the kissing, I really do, and yeah I’d like to… see what else there is? But not so much that I’d ever push you to where you’re uncomfortable,” she says intently. “That’s the main thing, okay? I can wait. The ‘what else’ can wait. It’s not that important.”

“But you just figured out that… you know. That you _do_ like all this. And I’m holding you back.”

“I don’t care!” Myka says emphatically. “I care about you.” It comes out before she can really think about it, but once it’s given air, once it’s out in the open, Myka knows that it’s true. “I care about you,” she repeats more softly. 

Helena stares at her as if those words have been a gut punch. And then she pulls back, scrambles upright and is out through the curtains before Myka can so much as reach out to her.


	11. Helena

“Helena?” 

Myka is coming after her. Helena grits her teeth and hopes that the attic’s darkness will hide her just for a moment longer. 

‘I care about you’ repeats in her head, over and over again, and she has no idea what to do. Myka cares about her, and Helena _wants._

Helena wants this so much it hurts. And it hurts so much that she has no idea how to deal with it except running away, but-

Part of her is dragging its feet. Is wondering. Isn’t this what Aunt Tee meant? Is this what she’s asked Helena to say yes to?

Helena knows the letter off by heart – she received it, in a closed envelope, when Aunt Tee’s testament was read. She didn’t open in in the notary’s office, didn’t read it then. She waited until she was alone, until everyone was asleep, until she was sure no one would butt in. It was hers, hers alone. Since then Helena has read and re-read it a million times – but all that she remembers now are bits and pieces, sentences that flow over and under and around Myka’s words until her head spins with them:

> we of the gentle hearts need to know one thing, and know it in our bones: hearts mend. Heartbreak will cut us to the quick, and there is no preventing it, but we will heal. 

And,

> I want you to promise me something: Say yes. Keep your heart as open, kind, caring and gentle as you can. Love boldly.

She had said yes to Giselle. And it had ended in heartbreak, even though Helena had known it hadn’t been love. But her heart had been open, and it had been cut to the quick, and Helena isn’t sure if she should say yes again so quickly, if her heart has healed from the last time.

It doesn’t feel healed. It feels all laid bare again, open to Myka’s smile, her laughter, her kindness, but all of that just _hurts._

Is this love?

“Helena?” Myka’s voice is just a few feet behind her, and Helena starts so violently she feels her stomach heave. “Sorry,” Myka adds quickly. When Helena turns around to face her, Myka’s hands are up at her shoulders, a gesture of appeasement as if she’s talking to an animal about to bolt, and maybe that’s not too far off. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”

‘I care about you,’ is all Helena hears. And she _wants_ that. She _wants_ for Myka to care for her, so how the devil does she say yes to that? 

Well, there is one easy answer, isn’t there. 

Helena takes a step towards Myka, then another, then the last. Brings her hands up to Myka’s face, pulls it down by the cheeks and pushes up her glasses and kisses her, raises her body against the taller girl until she feels Myka’s hands slide around her back and shoulders, pressing her closer. 

One of the upright beams is behind them, and Helena walks Myka there by pushing into her. Myka’s back connects with the wood and she makes a small ‘oof’ sound into their kiss, but she doesn’t stop and neither does Helena. Helena does pull back from the kiss when her hands drop to the hem of Myka’s shirt, but only to ask, “May I?”, only until she receives a shuddering “Yes,” in return. 

Myka’s skin is cool and soft and taut, and she shivers at Helena’s touch. Myka breaks the kiss and drops her head against the beam behind her, and Helena takes advantage of that to kiss down Myka’s chin and neck, pausing briefly for another “May I?”, another “Yes,” before going on. 

Myka’s breath is trembling and urgent now; her back arches and that pushes her breasts into Helena, and Helena wants to take advantage of that too. Her fingers trail from the naked skin of Myka’s back to the naked skin of Myka’s sides, defter now so as not to tickle, palming Myka’s waist and pulling her close for a moment, then she runs them further up until her thumbs brush the band of Myka’s bra and Myka’s breath leaves her all at once and in a rush-

“Helenawhatareyoudoing?”

And there are hands around her wrists stopping her, and Myka is pulling away to the side, and Helena is terrified right out of her wits. 

Her hands drop without resistance, and Myka lets go of her wrists, and they aren’t much more than inches apart but they might as well have been at opposite ends of the room to go by how alone Helena suddenly feels. 

Myka licks her lips. Do they still tingle, the same way Helena’s do? “Helena, what is going on?”

Helena just stares at her. Her brain is refusing to cooperate; she feels sick to her very center, and she has no clue what to do – this was her only idea, and Myka has put a stop to it. 

“Hey.” There’s that soft tone again, the skittish-animal tone. This time Myka’s hands aren’t up, though; this time she’s reaching for Helena’s hands, but her hold is light as feathers when all Helena wants is for it to be certain.

Helena’s hands ball into fists, and Myka lets go, when all Helena wants is to be held again, even without kissing.

“Helena, please, say something.”

“I thought you wanted this.” It comes out raspy, rusty, as if Helena hasn’t spoken in years. 

“I-” Myka breaks off, shakes her head. Lowers her voice. “Yeah, but… Helena, it doesn’t-” She stops again, and runs a hand through her hair that catches in her glasses. She takes them down from their perch, looks at them as if she’s never seen her own glasses before. Looks at Helena and frowns. “Look, can we get back to… back to the tent? I can barely see your face, and I… I don’t want to mess this up, and I think it’ll be helpful if we can see each other, right? Please?”

Helena feels safe here in the dark, but… Myka’s words make sense. They’re sensible. Because of course they are. “Alright,” she says, and it sounds shaky. She is shaking. Shaking so hard that she stumbles, on their way back, and sinks onto the futon without looking at anything else.

“Are you cold?” Myka has noticed. She’s still standing, looking down at Helena, glasses back on her nose, frown still firmly in place. “Do you need a blanket? I have a blanket. I used to have an old space heater but it broke in February and I haven’t replaced it yet, so-”

“I am not cold,” Helena says through chattering teeth.

“Bu-” Myka begins, then stops herself. She crouches down in front of Helena, frown deepening. “Are you running a fever? Can I- is it okay if I touch your forehead?”

Helena barely stops herself from scoffing; she is not running a fever. Instead she leans forward until her forehead touches Myka’s shoulder. When it connects, she shudders wildly, and Myka’s hands come up instinctively to steady her, and _that_ is what Helena wants, she realizes. She leans forward further, until her weight rests more on Myka than on the futon. 

“Whoa,” Myka says under her breath, “okay, hold on, okay…” She shifts both of them until she is sitting on the futon and Helena is practically in her lap. “Okay, I’ve got you,” she says. “I’ve got you.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” Helena whispers. 

“I don’t _ca_ -” Myka stops herself again when Helena cringes away from the words. “Sorry! Sorry,” she relents immediately, “no, that’s not what I meant, I… Helena, I don’t _mind._ It doesn’t _matter._ Okay? We’re both figuring this out. No one expects… _I_ don’t expect you to know all the answers just because you’ve done it with a girl before.”

“Boys, too,” Helena blurts out for a reason she can’t discern. 

Myka freezes for a moment, and Helena wishes she could take the words back. Then Myka’s arms squeeze her shoulders again, and Myka says, “Alright, fine, boys too. Still, though. Okay? We said we’d figure this out. And I… I pushed you too hard, when I said… _that,_ and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

Now it’s Helena’s turn to freeze. Does Myka regret saying it because she didn’t mean it?

Myka’s hands are on her shoulders now, pushing her back; Myka is peering into Helena’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Helena wants to hide from those worried hazel eyes. If Myka doesn’t mean it, why is she- why are they-?

“Helena, please say something,” Myka pleads. _“Please._ We can only figure this out if you talk to me, okay?”

“Did-” Helena’s voice is breaking, with Myka looking at her like that. She pulls away fully now, puts space between them, until she’s a good two feet away on the futon. She sniffs – her nose is swollen shut, her head is pounding, she’s clamping her hands together to keep them from trembling, she desperately wishes for chewing gum to have something to go down her throat to keep stuff from coming up it. “Did you mean it?” She sounds scratchy, but at least the words are out. 

“Did I-” for the third time, Myka stops her words. She rushes over, kneels down in front of Helena, takes her hands. “Yes I meant it. God, please, Helena, I’m sorry, yes I meant it. I meant every word. I do ca-”

“Don’t!” It’s shrill, a wail, a frightful, fearful sound. “Please,” Helena whispers. “I… I can’t-” she swallows harshly. “Please don’t say it. I… I know. I can still hear the words, but I can’t hear them again. You know? Please.”

Myka’s eyes are full of confusion, but she nods. “Okay,” she says, “I can do that. I can not say them. That’s okay. As long as you know, it’s okay. It’s okay.” 

Helena wonders, for a moment, if Myka isn’t trying to convince herself as much as she’s trying to convince Helena. But maybe that’s how this is done, this figuring out. “Thank you,” she says tonelessly. And with those words, everything leaves her. She sinks into Myka again, and again, there’s a “Whoa,” and a shuffling of limbs, and again she’s half in Myka’s lap.

She feels faint. 

Myka is saying something. No, asking something. 

“Hm?” Helena brings out. 

“When did you last eat or drink something?” Myka repeats. “You are as white as a sheet.”

The thought of food makes Helena’s stomach turn again. Drinking holds no appeal either, but this is the US, where she won’t be allowed to turn down hydration no matter how much she protests. “Tea,” she presses out. “Can I have tea?” 

She bought a kettle on Sunday, a kettle and cups, sugar and a box of teabags. Myka made fun of her when they came up here and Helena revealed what was in her bag, but some things just are the way they are, and tea is comfort. Tea, she can imagine getting down right now.

Myka detaches herself, and Helena sinks halfway down the backrest now that she’s no longer being propped up. There’s a rushing in her ears and a faint high-pitched noise, like TV static. Then there’s Myka’s voice again, and the scent of English Breakfast tea. “I put two sugars in there,” Myka says. She sounds worried. “Come on, let’s get you upright.”

Helena ends up sitting between Myka’s legs, propped up against her as the tea cools, head tilted back onto Myka’s shoulder while Myka plays with her hair. 

“I think it’s okay to drink now,” Myka says after what seems like no time at all. “Go on?”

Helena grabs the cup, and is barely able to lift it. There’s yet another “Whoa,” from behind her when she almost drops it, and then Myka’s hands curl around hers and steady the cup. Helena frowns; she should feel annoyed, at herself, at needing help to drink a bloody cup of tea, but all she feels is safe. 

Cared for.

She grits her teeth. The tea mug is almost at her lips now; this is not the time to flinch or sick something up. Then she tries to loosen her jaw enough to drink. 

She drains half the cup in one go even though it’s sweeter than she usually takes it. The rest goes down a minute later, and somehow it stays down, somehow the tea works its magic. Yet another few minutes later, Helena finds herself sitting up and casting around the tent for her water bottle, and for the sandwiches that constitute tonight’s dinner. 

Myka chuckles as she extricates herself from behind Helena. “Feel better?”

Helena nods. “Ravenous,” she says, because it’s true, and because she doesn’t want to dwell on why suddenly things are better and what it might or might not have had to do with Myka having held her. 

“Tea really is a cure-all for you, isn’t it,” Myka says, returning with both their bottles and the sandwich bag. 

Right. Tea. Much better explanation. Well, easier anyway. “You can take the girl out of England,” Helena says with a shrug.

Myka chuckles again and sits down next to her. “All the way to Colorado Springs,” she says lightly and holds out the water bottle. “Go slow, okay? I’ve seen people puke from drinking too much too fast.”

“Alright, alright,” Helena mutters, trying to sound aggravated at the reminder, but truth to tell, this is nice. It feels nice, to be cared for. Conversation is nice, too – it doesn’t have to be the big topics, they can just talk, yes? “Have you ever been outside the US?” she asks. 

“I applied to go to Model Crime Investigations,” Myka replies. “It’s like Model UN, only for-” 

“Crime Investigation,” Helena intones along with her. It’s not that far of a leap, after all.

They smile at each other, then Myka hands Helena one of the sandwiches. “Only it’s in South Korea,” she says dryly. “So, not really easily attainable. I tried, really hard, and Mr. Nielsen did his best to make it work, even found a possible scholarship for me for it, but in the end it fell through, and that’s as far as I got on that one. I’ve been to four other states so far for fencing, though, so there’s that. It’s not like my parents have a lot of money, so I’m glad they allowed me to fence at all, much less go out of state for tournaments.”

Helena nods her understanding and swallows the bite of sandwich in her mouth. “I always resented my parents’ moving,” she says quietly. “People would say how brilliant it was to know so many different places, to have so many opportunities, but I’d much rather just have stayed in one place, you know?”

“Are your parents diplomats or something?”

Helena shakes her head. “No, just business consultants. We never lived in _interesting_ cities, though, just hopping all across England. Birmingham, Portsmouth, Leeds.” She pulls a face and adds, “Bloody Dartford. Bloody _ten miles_ outside of London; why not _in_ London?” She takes another bite and gestures with the sandwich, then, half-swallowing her food, says, “You know?”

Myka grins. “I think I get it, yeah.” She frowns. “But couldn’t they have… I don’t know, just left you in one place while they went and moved? Once you and your brother were older, I mean? Or just… not moved as often? Or just one of them?”

“You’d _think,_ wouldn’t you?” Helena sinks vengeful teeth into the sandwich. All of those questions, she’d asked herself as well. She shakes her head as she chews and swallows. “But no. ‘Oh, my wife and I are a team, and our children fully support us’,” she intones, imitating her father’s most salubrious tones. “‘Aren’t I the luckiest man in the world, ahahaha’.” She rolls her eyes and bites into her sandwich again. 

“Ugh,” Myka says. 

They both eat in silence for a while. Helena finishes first, and Myka offers her the rest of her sandwich, but Helena declines. She is feeling much better now, much more stable, but she doesn’t want to overdo it, either. “You know, we should put a mini fridge in here,” she says. “I’ll help you carry.” She could have milk in her tea, not just sugar.

Myka snorts, then shakes her head. “I don’t want anything in here that draws energy permanently,” she says. “I have no idea if anyone ever checks the meters for the attic or something, but I really don’t want to risk being detected. Or worse, for this to burn down because of a short while we’re not here.”

Helena nods. That makes a lot of sense – most of what Myka does makes a lot of sense. “Do you think we could get running water up here, though?” Carrying a bucket is no fun at all, as much as she has come to like ramen.

Myka’s lips twitch. “You gonna take up plumbing in your spare time?”

Helena shrugs, trying to keep her own mouth from betraying her. “It’s a thought. A project. Or I could try and fix that space heater you spoke of.”

“Well, _I_ think we should get another desk up here first,” Myka says firmly. “That way, you have a spot for your projects that’s not my desk, Ms. Stark.”

“It was just the one battery,” Helena protests, but she does see Myka’s point. That one battery, or rather its acid, did ruin a Jemisin novel, and even if Helena bought a replacement the very next day – not the point. She still feels bad about the whole affair. The way Myka calls her Ms. Stark though… Pete’s called her that too, or changed her group chat name to it. It feels as though it means something, but Helena doesn’t want to look too closely into what, exactly. It’s much easier to think about… desks. Helena tilts her head in curiosity. “Don’t tell me there are spare desks downstairs?”

“Yep,” Myka nods with a grin. “Chairs too. A whole room full. Most of them are wobbly in some way, but if the Myk-Hulk was able to frankenstein together a working set, Iron Woman can too.”

Helena grins back at her. Warmth fills her right down to her toes now; it feels wonderful. If she could bathe in that feeling, she would; if she could put it in her pocket and carry it with her, she would – and it is not just Myka who makes her feel this way, but being up here, in this little cocoon of secrecy and safety and joy.

A place she now has permission and means to access on her own. She has two free periods every day; she could spend them up here instead of in the cafeteria, especially when she feels like being on her own. The thought is breathtakingly brilliant. She needs to be careful and circumspect, yes, but- 

She’s allowed in here. In this space that’s Myka’s; in this friend group that’s Myka’s; in Myka’s life. She’s allowed, and Myka said she belongs. 

She wants to take that feeling and never let it go. She wants to press it like a flower and keep it in her heart. It is the most precious thing she has, and she doesn’t ever want to lose it. 

“Can I ask you a favor?” she asks Myka, on a whim and before she can talk herself out of it again. 

“Sure,” Myka smiles that small smile again. 

“Could I… could we take a picture? Of the two of us, here on the futon? I’ll put it in my protected folder,” she promises quickly. “No one’s going to see it but me. Please?”

A blush creeps into Myka’s cheeks. “I…” She hesitates a moment, then nods. “Yeah, okay. But I’m not… Tracy is much better with pictures,” she says, “so, um, be patient, okay? I never know where to look or how to look or any of these things. Should I take off my glasses? Mom always tells me to-”

“Don’t you dare,” Helena says, shooting Myka a pointed glance before taking out her phone. “They suit you. They might get in the way when we’re kissing, but other than that, don’t you dare take them off.”

Myka’s eyes are round behind the lenses, and her blush deepens. “Oh. Okay.” She clears her throat. 

They end up in almost the same position as earlier, when Helena was leaning back against Myka as she waited for her tea to cool. And yes, it takes a couple of attempts, but the end product is everything Helena hoped for: one picture where both of them are looking at the camera, with two soft, breathless smiles spread over flushed cheeks, and another one where Myka’s eyes are closed but her smile is beatific.

“That one, too,” Myka points at the latter when Helena deletes the other attempts. “I look like a dork.”

“You look beautiful,” Helena says firmly. _“Both_ of these stay.” She turns her eyes on Myka. “Do you truly not know?”

“Know what?”

“Myka, you are… _stunning.”_ Helena can’t find any other word to describe Myka. 

Myka laughs self-consciously. “No I’m not. If anyone’s a stunner here, you are.”

“Well, in that case you’d better trust my judgement, had you not?” Helena asks pointedly. She knows that she’s attractive – she’s been told so often enough, usually by people who notice nothing else about her. She knows there’s power in good looks and that’s why she appreciates having a pleasant-to-look-at face and a body schooled into elegance by ballet lessons, but having Myka call her a stunner somehow reverberates differently. And having Myka put down her own attractiveness in the same breath _rankles._

Myka’s whole face is deeply red now. She looks up at Helena under her lashes, and Helena curses inwardly that she’s put her phone aside; there are so many expressions on Myka’s face that she would just love to capture. “Tracy is the pretty one,” Myka says, but there’s a hint of uncertainty in her statement. 

“I’m not talking about pretty,” Helena says dismissively. Yes, Tracy is pretty – alright, and smart, too; Helena doesn’t want to be the kind of person who notices nothing else about people. Tracy sits in her calculus class and has no problem whatsoever following along; she is most certainly not stupid. But Myka- “Myka, you-” she traces her finger across the other girl’s eyebrow. “You are beautiful. Don’t box yourself in.” She gives Myka a dry smile. “Nerds can be beautiful. The smartest girl in school can be beautiful. One family can have more than one pretty daughter.”

“But…” Myka is frowning deeply, and Helena runs her finger across the crease between Myka’s eyebrows, and that makes Myka fall silent. 

“You are stunning, and intelligent, and strong. Your eyes are mesmerizing, and when you laugh-” Helena gives a soft laugh at Myka’s incredulous face. “You’re so beautiful when you laugh,” she says. It’s not the most erudite compliment, but maybe simple is better in the face of Myka’s obvious disbelief. “There is so much to you,” she adds, gesturing around the tent, “you built this place, for starters – Myka, you are extraordinary, are you truly not aware of that?”

The crease is back, and now Myka is shaking her head with a self-conscious grimace. “I’m not… all that. I’m just… I’m just me. I mean, _you’re_ the one who’s amazing; having come through all this and still, you know, being good in class and making friends and everything.”

“If I am, it’s because of you,” Helena says. “Credit where credit is due. _You_ reached out to me. You asked if we could study together. You pulled me into the Avengers.”

“And you said yes,” Myka insists stubbornly. Then she grins. “You’re not gonna win this one, Wells.”

“And _you’re_ not going to put yourself down in my presence,” Helena says, feeling a bit cross. “I refuse to listen to that. My best regards to your father, by the way – if that’s what he instilled in you, he and I will have words tomorrow.” 

Myka looks alarmed now, anxious. “Promise me you won’t,” she says intently. _“Please,_ Helena.”

Helena blinks. She had intended her words to be light-hearted, but Myka’s reaction speaks of genuine worry. The kind of worry that is born from unpleasant experience. The kind of worry Helena needs to assuage. “Alright,” she says, swallowing her misgivings. 

“Thank you.” Myka breathes a sigh of relief that does nothing to alleviate how worried _Helena_ now feels. 

“Is there anything else I should or shouldn’t do when I meet him and your mother? I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

Myka thinks about this one for a while before she answers. “Don’t get into it with him,” she finally says, and her expression is one of resignation this time. “All those things you said just now. Don’t. Please. If he starts anything, just… just stay out of it, okay?”

“Myka, I-” 

_“Please.”_

For the first time that Helena has known her, Myka’s face is closed off. Only her eyes give away any emotion, and it’s imploration. Helena doesn’t know what to say. 

“Helena, I… Just… trust me, okay? I mean I should know, right? Trust me, it’d only make things worse.” Myka grits her teeth. “Please,” she says again.

Helena nods. What else can she do? 

And what kind of a man is Myka’s father, for goodness’ sake?


	12. Helena

Helena is on edge all day Wednesday, enough so to feel nauseous already at breakfast. She declines Mrs. Frederic’s offer of omelets and fixes herself oatmeal instead, hoping that the familiar gentleness will help, but it doesn’t. She grits her teeth and pushes through the cramps; she doesn’t want Mrs. F to take her out of class again – not today of all days. 

The meet starts at three in the afternoon, and time seems to both stand still and race until then. Leena tells her to just stick with her and take cues from her if Helena’s unsure what to do, and that helps some, but still, Helena’s nerves are shot at lunchtime, enough so that she knocks over her water bottle when someone in the cafeteria drops a stack of metal bowls with an almighty crash. 

Myka takes her hand, under the table, and squeezes. “He’s not _that_ bad,” she whispers. 

“Now you tell me,” Helena mutters back. They don’t get the chance for more, though; a group of letter-jacket-wearing football players that includes Walter and Nate saunters by, and Helena just hopes they haven’t seen Myka hold her hand. 

“They won’t be there tonight,” Myka informs her.

Helena nods. She remembers the vendetta between them and the wrestlers – it’s hard to be Pete’s friend and forget. 

Pete, for his part, is shooting very dark glances at the football players’ backs. At the end of lunch break he excuses himself; he’s exempted from the last few lessons in order to prepare for the tournament. Helena absolutely approves of this; he’s such a bundle of nerves that anything taught in those classes would pass him by anyway, plus he’d probably infect others with his antsiness. 

The gym’s bleachers are surprisingly packed when Helena and Leena enter. Everyone seems to be wearing something in the school colors; t-shirts mostly since it’s warm today (weirdly warm for October, Helena thinks, but apparently that’s normal for Colorado; what does she know), some sweaters or scarves, some letter jackets. Some people are waving little flags or pom-poms, even. The hall is decorated too; it’s all a sea of yellow and green, and Helena tries not to shake her head. This is stuff right out of movies. It takes her a while to find Myka in all this; in the end, it’s Leena who points and starts to move with intent. Next to Myka are Steve and Claudia, and on her other side is Tracy, who’s already looking bored. Next to Tracy are two adults who have to be Myka and Tracy’s parents. 

Warren Bering is balding, with some hair left – but that hair, cropped short though it is, is already on the verge of unruly. Helena would swear Myka gets her curls from him. Just before she and Leena arrive at their bench, Warren Bering stands, or rather, unfolds his frame – he’s tall, just as long-limbed as both his daughters. 

“Time for a few last man-to-man words between Pete and me,” he announces to the bench. Then he turns around and almost runs into Leena, who takes a half-step back and just misses jostling Helena. “Oh, hello Leena.” Then his gaze falls on Helena and he narrows his eyes – just like Myka does when she can’t quite place something. “And you are-?”

“Helena Wells,” Helena says, with a small smile and wave. She can’t really reach out her hand to shake with him; Leena’s in the way. 

“Ah, yes, the physics tutor,” he replies, and now _he_ is holding out his hand and Leena is bending awkwardly to the side to accommodate it. “Warren Bering. My wife Jeannie. Pleased to meet you.” His handshake is firm, and for all that he’s not smiling, his air is pleasant enough – he is a salesperson, he can’t be too abrasive, Helena reasons to herself. 

“Pleasure’s all mine,” she says. “Mrs. Bering,” she adds, holding out her hand to Myka’s mother too with an apologetic glance to Leena. 

“Oh hello there!” The woman’s handshake is shorter but more cordial, and she does smile up at Helena. She has Myka’s cheekbones, or vice versa. “Glad to finally meet you, too. Come, sit down,” she adds as Warren Bering squeezes himself past Helena and Leena. She pats her husband’s now empty spot next to her. “Warren won’t mind, I’m sure.”

Helena sinks down. “Hello, Tracy,” she says to the girl next to her, and “Myka,” she adds; what else can she do? Leena is sitting down on Myka’s other side between her and Steve, and oh how Helena wishes they could swap places. 

“Hey, H.G.,” Tracy replies indifferently, whereas Myka looks just about as queasy as Helena has felt all day. 

“So, you’re from Great Britain, I hear,” Myka’s mother begins, and Helena turns to her and goes through a discourse she’s had with well-nigh every adult she’s encountered here. Still, though, Mrs. Bering’s chatter is friendly, and the way she talks reminds Helena of Myka so much that she relaxes some. 

“What’s this, then?” a male voice intones from behind Helena, then – Myka’s father is back. “Usurping my spot?” Warren Bering gives a bark of a laugh. 

Tracy scrambles up. “Oh, there’s Joss and Shaw,” she says. “H.G., take my seat; I’m gonna go sit with them. See ya!” And she’s gone.

Helena quickly scoots to Myka’s side. Her hand brushes Myka’s – she looks down and sees that Myka’s fingers are clenched around the bench so tightly her knuckles are white. She bumps her shoulder into Myka’s and gives her a smile. “Hello,” she says. 

“Hey.” Myka’s answering smile is shaky. This close up, Helena can see the hard tightness of tension around her eyes.

“H.G., eh?” her father asks, and Helena reluctantly turns to him as he sits down. “So that’s H.G. Wells who’s tutoring my daughter? Must be a dream come true. She never stopped reading those books.” He makes it sound as though Myka should have, which Helena doesn’t quite understand but files away for later. “Your actual initials, or just a nickname?”

“Both,” Helena replies with a polite smile. “And Mr. Bering, it’s not just I who’s tutoring Myka; she’s tutoring me in English Literature, and her input on American authors has been invaluable.”

Myka’s elbow nudges Helena’s, and Helena can hear her softly clear her throat. She almost looks at Myka in disbelief – not even something as harmless as this?

“Hah,” Mr. Bering says disparagingly. “Not a lot of Twain and Melville in the British curriculum, then?”

“Afraid not,” Helena says with a smile she hopes is apologetic enough. “Although I did read quite a bit of Twain growing up, of course.”

Mr. Bering harrumphs. The speakers overhead crackle, and Helena is saved from more grilling by Mrs. Frederic greeting the meet’s participants. Pete’s fights are scheduled for later in the evening, but the audience – including the Berings – cheers for every single member of the Lincoln High wrestling team indiscriminately. It’s odd, Helena thinks as she looks around the room, across all the people decked out in yellow and green. She’s seen this on TV – it’s strange to be in the middle of it. Almost surreal. Adding to that disconnect is the fact that she simply has no idea what the athletes are doing, what constitutes a foul play or a win, what makes a match a good one or a boring one. She tries to take her cues from the faces of the team members on the bench and from the crowd’s reaction; she can’t stand out. She mustn’t. 

Story of her life, she thinks to herself as she cheers the apparent win of a freshman. 

As freshman fights proceed to sophomore fights and then to junior fights – or at least that’s what Helena surmises; she has no idea if the age classes in wrestling have the same names as school years – Myka relaxes a little next to her. Warren Bering is quite into the whole thing; he very obviously can tell a good match from a boring one, and has no compunction about broadcasting his opinion to the rest of the bleachers. He is quite inventive in his remarks; Helena can see where Myka gets some of her sense of humor from. Mrs. Bering is quiet, but does applaud each Lincoln High win, as does Myka and the rest of the bench. 

There is a break before the ‘big event’ of the senior fights, and Mr. Bering turns to Helena. “Well, what do you think?”

Helena’s nervousness spikes. “I can honestly say I have never had an experience like this in my life,” she tells him. She tries to sell it as positive, but he narrows his eyes at her again, and she reminds herself that words are this man’s daily bread.

“School here isn’t just about the academics, you know,” he informs her. “It’s about spirit, too, and that’s what you can see here. Better respect that.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Helena nods. “I’m just not used to it, is all.” 

“Well, if my daughter had stuck with fencing, you’d be getting used to it faster,” Mr. Bering says with a poignant gaze at Myka. 

Helena blinks in confusion. Hadn’t Myka told her-

“Dad, you know why I’m not fencing this year,” Myka says next to her. To judge by her flat delivery, she’s had this conversation before.

“Warren, please,” Mrs. Bering chimes in from his other side. 

He raises his hands with a disingenuous smile. “Alright, alright, I guess I’m outnumbered. But she had it in her,” he tells Helena, “to actually _win_ the tournament this year. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Dad.”

“Warren, look, there’s Jane,” Mrs. Bering points to where Mrs. Lattimer is heading towards them. “Come on, let’s go say hello.” And she pulls him away. 

They are barely out of earshot when Myka gives an abysmal sigh and lets her head fall back. 

“Don’t worry, Myka, we all know,” Leena says, patting Myka’s knee. 

Helena bites down a little pang of jealousy, and just nudges Myka’s shoulder with hers. They are in the middle of dozens of people; anything more she could do would be noticed.

“Deep breaths,” Claudia says, bending over Steve, “and happy thoughts.”

“I’m _trying,”_ Myka tells the ceiling. “Eleven more months, and then I am _out_ of here.”

Helena bites down another little spike, not jealousy this time, but frustration – she doesn’t want to think of summer, of college, of Myka and her parting, and the thought that for Myka this is something to look forward to and count down towards… that thought _hurts._

“Eyes on the prize, Bering,” Claudia says approvingly. “Eyes on the prize.”

Myka takes a deep breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth, and nods. Her chin is determined, her eyes stony – they’re the same color as her mother’s, Helena suddenly realizes. Warren Bering’s eyes are darker and greyer; but Jean Bering’s mossy hazel green matches her daughter’s eyes exactly.

Myka’s parents come back with Mrs. Lattimer in tow, and everyone shuffles together to allow for one more person on the bench. Mrs. Bering ends up next to Helena this time; whether intentional or not, Helena doesn’t care. All she does care about is that her body is pressed against Myka’s now, shoulder to knee, and there’s nothing anyone can say about it. Myka has removed her hand from in between them and is holding both hands between her knees now. It looks more relaxed, but Helena can feel the tension thrumming through the other girl.

“So, Helena,” Myka’s mother says, “I hear you two have been tutoring each other in school – you can also come by our place, you know. Myka so rarely brings friends home. It’s not like the house is booby-trapped!” She laughs.

“Thank you for the offer,” Helena says with a polite smile. “I’d love to, but I’m afraid I don’t have a car. I already rely on Myka to drive me home after tutoring; I couldn’t make her drive me all the way home from your place.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Mrs. Bering replies, “it’s no bother.”

“Yeah, kiddo, isn’t that why you work in the library? Gas money?” Myka’s father chimes in. 

“Well,” Helena says, with her best diplomatic smile, “our set-up works well for tutoring right now, but I’ll gladly come over just to visit if you’d like?”

“Yes, of course!” Mrs. Bering claps her hands. “How about this Saturday?”

“Mom, that’s movie night at Pete’s.”

“Mrs. Bering,” Helena says, trying to find diplomatic middle ground, “if it’s not too forward of me, might I ask about Thanksgiving? I’ve never experienced that holiday.”

“Oh, of course, dear, what a great idea!” Mrs. Bering gives her an enthusiastic, beaming smile that reminds Helena so much of Myka that she almost does a double-take. “Thanksgiving it is.”

The speaker announces the senior matches a moment later, and when Pete steps onto the floor, the bench explodes in cheers. He grins up at them and gives them a wave and a double thumbs up. By now Helena has some idea of how wrestling is supposed to go, and Pete does seem to have a talent for it. He wins all of his matches, to greater and greater applause each time. 

“That’s how you do it,” Warren Bering roars as Pete raises his arm in triumph and thanks after his last match. “Good job, son!” He’s standing, along with everyone else on their bench. 

Next to her, Helena can feel Myka flinch. As the applause dies down and people begin to settle again, she turns to Myka and asks, “Hey, um – would you mind showing me where the nearest bathrooms are?” She casts Myka’s parents an apologetic look and adds for their benefit, “I’m afraid I’m not around the gym often enough to have them mapped out in my mind.” Which is utter bollocks, of course; she knows all the bathrooms by now, has made it her job to do so in the first two weeks when she felt like puking all the time, but nobody here needs to know that.

Myka starts, then nods. “Sure.” 

They make a beeline past the others, up the bleachers and down the stairs at their back. Myka pulls them past the nearest bathroom, though, and through a double door towards the library part of the building – the corridor here is dark, and no one’s around. Helena approves of the choice. 

When the library bathroom door closes behind them and the lights flicker on, Helena can still see, for a moment, anguish in Myka’s eyes. She reaches out for her with both arms. “I’m so sorry,” she says. 

Myka hesitates for a moment, then turns her face away. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, ignoring Helena’s offer of an embrace. 

“Myka-” Helena steps towards her and around into Myka’s new line of sight. “It’s not okay. You’re hurting.”

“Nothing new there,” Myka says acerbically, and turns away again. “Helena, please. Just… just give me a moment, okay?”

Helena bites her lips together. The twinge from earlier, when Myka couldn’t wait for fall to come, makes a comeback. She drops her gaze and nods. “I do… um, need to go,” she says, pointing vaguely to the row of stalls. 

Myka’s reply is curt. “I’ll wait outside.”

When Helena steps outside, too, a minute or two later, Myka reaches for her hand, and Helena quickly complies, linking their fingers together even if hers are still a bit moist from washing them. 

“I… do appreciate it,” Myka says, gesturing around the corridor with her free hand. “You taking me out of there. Thanks.”

“Anytime.” Helena tries to imbue the word with all the seriousness at her command. She does mean it. “I do hope it’s alright I basically invited myself to your family’s Thanksgiving?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re fine,” Myka says quickly. “Mom was asking about it the other week, when we were putting up Halloween decorations. Whether you do Halloween and Thanksgiving and all that in England too. I think if you hadn’t said anything, she would have invited you anyway. Just expect more questions about, you know,” Myka shrugs again, “England. Europe.”

Helena smiles. “I can handle those,” she says. “Should we head back, or would you rather stay a bit longer?”

“No,” Myka says with an explosive exhale, “we should get back, you’re right. They’ll be announcing points totals soon, and we’ll be expected to cheer again.” Still, though, she doesn’t make a move, just shifts in place and looks at her feet.

Helena reaches out with her other arm and, when Myka doesn’t turn away, pulls her close. Myka stays stiff for a moment, and then softens into the hug, running her hands around Helena’s shoulders and squeezing tightly. Helena can feel Myka take several deep breaths, each exhale longer than the last-

The hallway door opens behind them. 

The crack cuts the silence like gunshot, and Helena flinches back, out of Myka’s embrace in the fraction of a second.

“Don’t mind me,” says a voice she doesn’t recognize. “Just going to the quieter bathroom. Hi, Myka.”

“Hey, um, Shaw.” Myka’s voice is unsteady. She clears her throat, but before she can say anything, there’s the sound of the bathroom door.

Helena is frozen to the spot, eyes pinched shut. Her thoughts are making up for her motionlessness, running around in her head in chaotic circles; her heart is beating up her throat. She knows the name ‘Shaw’, she’s heard it not too long ago, but for the life of her she can’t remember-

“Shaw is captain of my soccer team. And she’s one of Tracy’s friends,” Myka says, and Helena’s panic gains another layer. Then Myka adds, “She doesn’t talk much. It’s one of the unlikeliest friendships you can think of, really. Helena, it’ll be alright. Shaw doesn’t gossip.”

Helena hears the words, but she can’t make herself believe them. There’s the sound of a toilet flushing inside the bathroom, of steps, of a stall door banging shut, of water rushing into a sink. Helena stands rooted still, utterly unable to move. Her every instinct is shouting at her to run away, but somehow she can’t, and now the bathroom door is opening and-

“Still making sure the floor doesn’t fly away, I see,” Shaw says wryly. Then she’s past them, and the door to the gym hallway closes behind her. 

“Helena?”

Helena takes a shuddering breath. Runs a trembling hand through her hair. Tries to line up her thoughts enough to speak. “I came here to offer _you_ a bit of comfort,” she says in the end, and gives a very unconvincing laugh. “And here I am the one shaking.”

Myka is silent for a moment. Helena would very much like to see what Myka’s facial expression is like, but her eyes are still frozen shut. “Would you like another hug?” Myka asks cautiously.

The mere thought of a repeat performance makes Helena tense up again. 

Then Myka’s phone buzzes with a call, and that doesn’t help either. 

“Yes?” Myka answers it. By the sound of it, she’s turned aside. “Yeah, I know, Mom, I’m sorry. We’re, uh, having a bit of a… a bathroom situation here… no, nothing to worry about. All good. We’ll be back in a bit. Mom, I gotta go, okay? Be there in a bit.” A pause, and then a hand on Helena’s arm. “Helena?”

Helena pries open her eyes. Myka is so close, and her eyes so anxious, and she would like nothing better than to sink into Myka’s embrace, but they’re far too out in the open, far too vulnerable in this corridor that other people know and come to. 

“Hey, come on,” Myka says, “I have an idea.” She tugs at Helena’s sleeve. “Trust me?”

With stilted, mechanical motions, Helena nods. When Myka turns and heads towards the door to the gym hallway, Helena follows. And then, right before opening it, Myka steps to the side and pulls Helena close, and Helena stiffens again.

“We’re behind the hinge,” Myka explains. “Anyone opens the door now, we’ll be out of sight. It’s okay, Helena, I promise.” She runs her hands up Helena’s unresponsive back and repeats, “I promise.”

Her fingers make Helena shudder, and that makes her hands reach out for the closest thing they can hold on to. They find the side hems of Myka’s jeans, fail to get purchase, find the bottom of Myka’s sweater, curl and lock. 

She doesn’t allow herself to relax. 

She can’t; they’re expected back up in the bleachers ‘in a bit’, and that’s not feasible if Helena lets down her guard now, she knows that much. So, after two breaths during which she tries to commit every single detail to memory – Myka’s hands on her back, the scent of Myka’s sweater and shampoo, the rhythm of Myka’s breath, the warmth between their bodies – she straightens and unfurls her fingers. 

Her eyes are dry. 

They are also patently unable to move anywhere taller than the floor.

“We should go,” she says. It comes out as a croak, and she clears her throat. “Your parents are waiting.”

“Helena, are you okay?”

Helena bites her lip sharply to keep in a bitter laugh. “I will be,” she says. Then she remembers what Myka said about her parents and how Helena should act around them, remembers how Myka asked her to trust her expertise with her own family over Helena’s misgivings. The shoe seems on the other foot now – Myka clearly has misgivings about Helena’s claims of okay-ness, and Helena just needs Myka to trust her and let it go, and, most importantly, not ask further questions. “I know how to do this,” she says. “Trust me. Please?”

Once again, Myka is silent for a while. Once again, Helena can’t look at her. Then Myka says, “Okay.”

Helena’s eyes flutter close in gratitude. “Thank you.”

And then Myka does go there, doesn’t let it go completely. “Anything I can do to help?”

Helena’s breath hitches. Of all the questions Myka could have asked… There _is_ one thing, but she doesn’t know how to ask it, how even to wrap words around it. “You… are…” She clears her throat again. “You are…with me. Right? On… on my side?”

“Always.” The answer comes fast. So beautifully fast. And now Helena look up at Myka, now she can take in the expression in Myka’s face, the honest, serious promise in Myka’s eyes. “I will always be in your corner,” Myka says. “Right here, at your side. No matter what. Rumors, haters, idiots, no matter what: I will always be here.”

Her words make Helena want to cry – again. She presses her lips together angrily, grinds her teeth, takes shallow breaths until the threat goes away. Then she nods and squares her shoulders. 

“Ready?” Myka asks.

Helena exhales. “Ready.” 

Back in the gym, people are already milling about, ready to leave. Helena and Myka wait at the foot of the stairs; Helena is standing behind Myka to leave enough space for people to pass them by. Myka has extended an arm behind her; a perfectly normal gesture in the circumstances, and a point of contact that warms Helena through and through. She shifts her weight, moves and turns a little, and now her hand, hidden between her body and the wall, can find the hem of Myka’s sweater again; another source of warmth.

“Hey, Lyka!” Pete pushes through the throng of bodies. People cheer, clap his shoulders, tousle his damp hair – Helena hopes the wetness is shower water and not sweat. 

“Lyka?” she asks in Myka’s ear as he gets closer.

Myka shrugs. “It’s the sweater,” she says, and her fingers brush Helena’s as she tugs at the hem of the item in question, green with a bright yellow L on the front. “It’s what he calls me when I wear it.”

“Of course it is,” Helena murmurs. Rolling her eyes over Pete’s antics is yet another thing that warms her, though, and she’ll take that any day.

Myka’s fingers squeeze hers briefly, then they both let go; Pete’s there. 

“Pretty awesome, right?” he beams at them. 

Myka nods, grinning back. 

“Hey H.G., whaddaya think – better than football, eh?”

Helena raises her eyebrows with an indulgent smile. “Oh, absolutely,” she says. She doesn’t like football – _American_ football that is; the admittance comes easy enough. 

“Atta girl,” Pete says. “We need to get you in school colors, though. Get you properly Americanized.”

Helena lets the smile drain from her face while the eyebrow stays where it is, until her expression is properly horrified and both Pete and Myka laugh. It makes her relax a little more, and the rest of the evening goes smoothly enough. 

Still, by the time Helena is home and in bed, she can’t sleep for thoughts about Shaw and what the situation might be in school tomorrow.


	13. Myka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a moderately successful, but still tense coming out conversation.

At next morning’s breakfast, Tracy speaks up. “Mom, Dad, can I ask you something?”

Myka, who’s scrolling through the news on her phone while chewing her cereal, only listens with half an ear. 

“What would you do if one of us was gay?”

Myka’s spoon lands in her bowl with a clang and a splash of spilled milk. She stares at Tracy. What the fresh hell?

“Tracy,” Jean says in a tremulous voice, “sweetheart, is there something you want to tell us?”

Tracy is beet-red now. For all her pretty looks, when she blushes, she’s _splotchy._ She shoots Myka a glance that’s too short to be decipherable, then hangs her head. “I… um…”

Myka could murder her, if she wasn’t frozen to her chair.

“Out with it, Tracy,” Warren barks. 

“Warren,” Jean chides, putting her hand on his arm. “Please. If Tracy-” she stops herself, turns to her younger daughter, and addresses her directly, “Tracy, if you’re gay, or les-” she inhales with a sharp sniff, clears her throat, soldiers on, “um, lesbian, or bi, or whatever these things are called these days, of course we’d love you, just like before.”

Myka is staring at her sister. There are shadows underneath Tracy’s eyes; it looks like she slept really badly, if at all. What is Tracy doing? What-

“I think I…” Tracy goes on, then shakes her head and breaks off. She swallows, and shoots Myka another, slightly longer glance that still Myka can’t make head or tails of. “No,” she corrects herself, “I don’t _think._ I… Mom, Dad, I have a girlfriend.”

Myka’s mouth drops open. 

To be fair, so does Jean’s. 

Warren’s eyes narrow. “Who?” he asks. 

Tracy gulps again. “Sameen,” she says quietly. 

“But-” Jean splutters. “Tracy… but Shaw… I mean Sameen… I mean… since w- I thought you were just friends?”

Myka continues to stare wordlessly at her sister while her mind is working at a million miles an hour.

Tracy sucks in the right half of her upper lip and drops her gaze. “April.”

“What!” Warren explodes. “Nonsense. You don’t have a girlfriend. You’re just confu-”

“I am _not confused,_ Dad,” Tracy shoots back. “Yeah we started out friends, but… but we’re more than that now. Okay? I…” Tracy’s chin comes up. “I love her.”

Jean gives a soft gasp. “Oh, sweetie.” She is silent for a moment. Her hand is still on Warren’s arm – if it weren’t, Myka is sure that her dad would be saying something. As it is, she’s astonished that he’s not yelling. Then again, it’s Tracy. Warren Bering doesn’t yell at Tracy. “Sweetie,” Jean repeats; her voice wobbles a bit but her eyes are determined. “That’s… that’s wonderful.”

Warren scoffs. “What on earth is wonderful about that? Jeannie, boys already lust after every girl. You know as well as I do that they lust even more after two girls. It’s disgusting, and I won’t have it. Have you told anyone else?” he asks Tracy.

“Joss knows,” Tracy says defiantly. “And Shaw’s family.” Her voice rises in anger. “Why do you think we’ve been hanging out at her place more than here? I knew you’d be this way about it!” 

“And what way would that be, if I may ask?” Warren’s voice, in contrast, is flat and icy. It makes the hairs on Myka’s neck rise; usually, she’s at the receiving end of this voice, and usually, it makes her pull the hell back out. But Tracy just barrels on; she doesn’t know this voice directed at her, doesn’t know what it means, what’s coming towards her.

“A hypocrite,” Tracy exclaims. “Boys will _lust_ after us? Really, Dad? _That’s_ your argument?”

“You are grounded,” Warren snaps. “You will _not_ see-”

“Warren.” Jean’s voice is still uneven, but again her eyes are firm. “None of that. We said we’d love them as before. And we would never ground them for having a boyfriend.”

“They get grounded for lying to us!”

Tracy’s eyes flare up. “I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you, and _this_ is exactly why, don’t you see?” 

“Same difference,” Warren spits.

“Warren, they’re teenagers,” Jean says imploringly. “Keeping things from their parents is what they do!”

Warren scoffs again. “What’s next? Huh?” Warren asks, then turns to Myka with an irascible gesture that makes her shrink. “What are _you_ hiding from me, then? Got a crush on… one of those movie aliens or something?”

“Leave Myka out of it, Dad,” Tracy says. And now, for the first time, she gives Myka a clear look, and a cheeky grin. “This has nothing to do with her, okay? This is all me. And I mean, _all_ me,” she repeats. “Not that the next quote-unquote argument you come up with is that Shaw seduced me or something. She didn’t. For the record.”

Warren audibly grits his teeth. 

“Look at it this way, Dad: at least you don’t have to worry about me getting pregnant,” Tracy says. 

Warren’s face darkens, as if he’s just about to explode. 

“Tracy!” Jean chides. “That’s not the only worry parents have, you know.” She reaches forwards and puts her hand on Tracy’s. “We want you to be safe, and happy. We don’t want you to be bullied or threatened. There are so many people out there who are just hateful, and…” her eyes are full now. “Sameen already gets such a hard time from people thinking she’s Muslim; well this isn’t going to help, is it?”

“I love her, Mom,” Tracy says simply. “That makes up for all the rest.”

Myka sucks in a breath. It does sound simple, when Tracy states it like that. 

Jean is moved by Tracy’s words too. She squeezes Tracy’s hand and nods. “O-okay, sweetie. And you said that Sameen’s family know too? And they are – are they okay with it?”

“Shaw’s mom has these hang-ups about grandchildren,” Tracy shrugs. “It’s not like she doesn’t have other kids to give her those, but you know how people can be. Also, just saying, we’re _two_ people who could potentially carry a baby; children aren’t out of the picture just because we’re gay.”

Jean gasps again and claps a hand in front of her mouth. 

“Tracy Louise Bering,” Warren begins again, but he sounds far less irate than earlier. “You’re going to give your mother a heart attack.”

“I would never.” Tracy smiles at him, and Myka marvels. If it had been her and not Tracy having this conversation with their dad (and that’s a thought experiment that comes automatic after all these years), Myka is one hundred percent certain there wouldn’t be smiles between father and daughter now. 

Half an hour later, when they’re both on the way to school, Myka addresses the elephant in the car with them. “What on earth, Tracy?”

“What?” Tracy sounds defensive.

“Seriously, Trace – you and _Shaw?_ I mean, for real, or did you just make that up for Mom and Dad?”

Tracy scowls. “Why would I do _that,_ for fuck’s sake?”

Myka frowns in confusion. She thought she had an idea of what was going on, but Tracy’s reaction does not fit that. “Because Shaw told you to?” she ventures.

“Why would Shaw tell me to make up something like that?” Tracy shakes her head at Myka. “You’re not making any sense. All she asked was if it wasn’t time I told Mom and Dad. Her folks are going to Los Angeles on Thanksgiving for some kind of huge Armenian get-together and she doesn’t want to go with, but she says it’d be weird to hang out at our place without our parents knowing, soooo…” She shrugs. “I’ve been meaning to bring it up for a while now. I mean it’s been six months; it’s getting ridiculous that they don’t know.”

“And Shaw didn’t say anything else?” Myka’s thoughts are racing again. What is _Shaw’s_ game, then?

“No?” Tracy gives Myka her patented ‘what the hell are you even talking about’ look. “Seriously, Myka, what’s with you and Shaw?”

“Nothing,” Myka says, and focuses on driving. A few moments later, she asks, “Are you happy?”

Tracy doesn’t reply immediately, and Myka steals a glance. Tracy is beaming. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Myka smiles back at her. “That’s what matters.” Then she concentrates on the road again.

“You’re not mad, then?”

“Me?” Myka snorts. “Why would _I_ be mad?” 

“Because you just jumped down my throat?” Tracy says. Before Myka can apologize for that, she goes on, in a softer voice, “And because I have no idea what you’re thinking, half the time.” 

To be honest, at this point, chances are I’m thinking about Helena, Myka does _not_ say. “Sorry,” she says instead. “Sorry I yelled, and sorry that I didn’t make you feel like you could tell me.” She pulls into the school parking lot and starts the search for a free spot. 

“Well, now you know,” Tracy sighs. “Just… just don’t tell anyone else, yeah?”

“Of course! Geez, Trace, give me _some_ credit. I’d never. And if anyone gives you grief-”

“I’ll go tell my big sister, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Tracy snorts. “Hey, there’s a spot,” she exclaims, pointing into a row on the left.

Myka takes the curve a bit too tight, but makes it into the spot before anyone else can snatch it. “Thanks.”

“Hey, I have to walk to the entrance too,” Tracy grins. Then she turns serious. “Thank you, for real, though. For, you know… being cool about it.”

“Sure. And hey, that giving you grief thing – goes for Mom and Dad too, okay? Especially Dad.”

Tracy shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Eh, he won’t. You saw him; he’d halfway swallowed it by the end of breakfast. He’ll be fine. Seriously, you running interference might make things worse than better, but you know that.”

Oh, does Myka ever. For a moment, she flushes hot with envy. For a moment, she wonders how much worse it would have gone, had she been the one to come out to her parents, not Tracy. And then it hits her – both of her parents’ daughters are gay. Or at the very least not straight. Tracy has used the word gay, but Myka… Myka doesn’t really know, isn’t really sure which word to use to label herself. If-slash-when she talks to her parents about it.

That’s a conversation she’s not looking forward to. Okay, she has a clearer idea now, but still, it’s one thing if one of your daughters comes out. But both of them? 

Myka wonders if her mom is going to join Mrs. Shaw lamenting over grandchildren. 

Then she shakes her head free and gets out of the car. Tracy is already halfway to the doors, and Myka stares after her. 

Tracy and children… somehow fits. Tracy has always been the consummate babysitter, much more so than Myka ever was. She’s gone to multiple babysitting classes, volunteers at a pre-school. Shaw and children… Myka can’t really see it, but if she knows anything about her soccer captain (and whatever she does know has taken a serious hit this morning), she knows that ‘still waters run deep’ has never been truer for anyone than Sameen Shaw.

 _Helena_ and children – again Myka clears her head with a shake. Not something to think about five minutes before meeting her in homeroom. _Maybe_ something to bring up with her later. Like, way later. Like, when they’re thirty or something.

Tracy has reached her group of friends. Now that Myka knows, it seems that Tracy is standing a bit closer to Shaw than friends typically would – or is she? Maybe Myka is just being paranoid. Shaw looks up at Tracy, then over at Myka, then she gives Myka a silent raise of her chin as greeting, and Myka can’t make anything of that either. 

As if Shaw can see Myka’s confusion, she comes over to speak with Myka. “Hey,” she greets Myka, and that, at least, is more like the usual. 

“Hi,” Myka replies, working hard on sounding normal. 

“Tracy said you wanted to work on that stepover. D’you have time after school? An hour or so? I can show you.” 

Myka goggles. This is, yet again, nothing like what she’d expected, and she feels so at a loss that she can’t say anything but, “Yeah,” and then realize that, no, she doesn’t; it’s Thursday. “Uh, no,” she amends quickly. “I work at the library. I’m free-ish after five?” If Helena is okay with it?

Shaw nods. “See you on the pitch, then. Bring the Brit; Brits know their soccer, maybe she can help.”

Shaw turns to head back to Tracy and their friends, and Myka stares after her. Why does Shaw want to see Helena too? That has to be connected with yesterday, right? 

Shaw glances back at Myka as she joins Tracy. She rolls her eyes ever so slightly, and then exaggeratedly closes her mouth. Myka blushes, snaps her mouth shut, and turns towards the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all Root/Shaw shippers: I haven’t watched a single episode of POI; I hope I’m going to do the two of them justice. Please bear with me!


	14. Helena

Helena feels bone-tired the morning after the wrestling meet. Ravenous, too, which is odd, considering – or maybe Leena’s breakfast rolls are just that good. She finds herself eating three before Mrs. Frederic stops her with admonitions to not get sick again. 

Helena scowls at that, but the prospect of more vomiting truly doesn’t appeal. She does pack herself an ample lunch, just in case. 

She’s silent in the passenger seat as she and Leena ride to school. Seen but not heard – and she’d rather not be seen either. Maybe, if she’s unnoticeable, unremarkable enough, Shaw will forget what she saw. 

Myka approaches her before homeroom. “Hey, um… I… I know it’s a stereotype, but… do you, um… do you like soccer?”

Leena and Steve exchange glances and then they both laugh out loud. “Christ, Myka,” Steve says, “could you be stereotyping _more,_ I wonder?”

“She does like tea,” Myka protests, ears flaming. 

“And I do enjoy football,” Helena says, emphasizing the last word pointedly. “I don’t play it, but I do like watching.”

“Oh.” Myka’s face falls a little. “I thought maybe you used to play, too. Um, anyway, maybe you can still help; Shaw wants to meet up after I’m done at the library. I think she… um… wants to talk strategy? Pick your brains, if you’re interested?”

Shaw. That one word has Helena instantly alert. This can’t be about football. Outwardly, she shrugs; inwardly, she searches every inch of Myka’s face for any kind of clue as to what’s going on, and doesn’t find any. For once, Myka’s face is carefully composed and neutral. “Not that I know all that much,” Helena says, “but sure, why not?”

“Awesome.” Myka beams. Her relief seems all out of proportion, but then Mrs. Lattimer calls them to order and Helena can’t ask. 

The library computers need updating, so Myka is too busy for tutoring, and Helena finds herself with a couple of hours to kill until they’re meeting Shaw. She decides to take advantage of the key she now has, and explore the storage rooms beneath the attic, rather than sit and try to read something she won’t be able to focus on. 

There is so much clutter and rubbish up here, it’s incredible – but among the outdated globes and books, the broken projectors, the dilapidated chairs and desks (yes, there _is_ a whole room full of them), there are true treasures, and Helena finds the greatest one three rooms in. 

A digital piano. 

It does start up when she plugs it in (after finding the cord and finding an outlet), or rather, the ‘on’ light turns on, but no sound comes out when she hits the keys; not a single one of them responds. But that’s something she can work on. She knows Myka has an old screwdriver up in the attic; maybe it’s the right size to open up this baby, and even if it isn’t, she can look for other screwdrivers down here, or buy one as a last resort. 

‘H.G. Stark’ has a _project_ now. 

(She still isn’t over that moniker yet. Pete can’t have known how much of a tinkerer Helena can be.)

The next thirty minutes are spent lugging the piano (which, fortunately, is the kind that’s just the keyboard on a detachable stand, and nowhere near as unwieldy as, say, a futon) and its stand and bench up to the attic. Once there, Helena does indeed find a screwdriver; three of them, in fact, and a wrench. All of these she takes with her to the chair-and-desk room, and another half an hour later, she’s up in the attic again, tightening the bolts that hold her ‘new’ desk’s tabletop to its frame. 

When she’s done, she puts the piano on said desk upside down and sets to work. The smaller of the two cross-head screwdrivers fits the screws that holds the body together, and soon she has the beast’s bowels exposed. There’s a burn stain on one of the circuit boards; one of the resistors must have blown. She takes a picture of it with her phone to help her remember what’s blown and where. The damage seems like it’s easily enough repaired with a standard part or two and a soldering iron, and even though currently Helena doesn’t have either, that’s easy enough to remedy. 

And then she can have _music._

Helena feels elated at the prospect. Yes, Mrs. Frederic has a piano, but it’s not a digital one – everyone in the Frederic household would hear Helena play, and she isn’t comfortable at the idea. Up here, she’ll be able to play by and for herself, and she’s missed that. Music has always been a refuge, to the point where, when Myka and she were talking about things they would love to do that weren’t reading, Helena almost spoke of her love of music – almost. Now, though, with access to Myka’s attic, and the potentiality of a functioning digital piano? Now she can’t not tell her.

Even if Myka was present when Helena wanted to play, digital pianos have a headphone jack; Helena wouldn’t be bothering her. She takes a deep, happy breath that’s interrupted when her phone buzzes with a reminder – it’s a quarter to five; she needs to head down. She hastily packs things back up again and takes great care, just like Myka does, to avoid detection as she leaves. 

She almost skips and dances down the corridor, she’s so excited. 

Music! 

Lord, she’s missed it. It’s only now that it’s almost back within her grasp that she realizes how much.

As she steps outside, she realizes something else, too: she hasn’t thought about Shaw and yesterday evening all afternoon. Now, as she heads towards the football pitch, anxiety is back with a vengeance. It’s getting chilly outside and the sun is definitely on its way to the horizon; Helena rubs her upper arms and wonders what a Colorado Springs winter is like, after September was so bloody hot and when early October is still so weirdly warm. 

It’s not just Shaw and Myka there when Helena arrives but Tracy too; the latter is sitting on a sun-drenched portion of the bleachers watching the other two stand heads together over a ball near the box. Helena makes for the bleachers too; she doesn’t have anything to contribute on the actual pitch.

She clears her throat as she approaches Tracy. “Hello, Tracy.”

“Oh, H.G., hi!” Tracy smiles at her and pats the bench. “Sit down.” She nods her head at the two figures on the pitch. “Shaw’s idea, meeting here. She said something about a stepover that Myka wants to learn? It’s kinda weird to think that Myka… I mean, yeah, fencing also has footwork, but… Stepovers are _cool,_ and Myka…” Tracy shakes her head skeptically. “I can’t see it.”

Helena wants to defend Myka at this point, but isn’t sure how, and then the moment has gone and it would be weird to bring it up. Myka and Shaw have begun to pass the ball back and forth, then Shaw keeps it and executes the maneuver flawlessly, bypassing a defending Myka with almost embarrassing ease. Helena can hear Myka’s groan all the way across the pitch. She watches and wonders why she’s here – surely Myka hasn’t asked her to come to watch her show off? This is anything but, to be honest. Myka tries to replicate the move, but since she’s not in kit, she’s not wearing cleat shoes, so she slips on the ball and lands on her butt. Tracy whoops, and Myka lifts her head to scowl over. Then she sees Helena and her scowl dissolves immediately, into a beaming smile and wave. Shaw grabs the waving arm to pull Myka up, and Tracy hums thoughtfully.

“Say, H.G.,” she begins, drawing out the syllables. “There… wouldn’t be anything… _sapphic_ between you and her Giraffic Majesty over there. Would it?”

Helena’s heart stumbles. “What do you mean?” she stalls. 

“Oh, come on,” Tracy scoffs, “I’m sure you know the term. Sapphic. Lesbionics. Girl love.” She looks at Helena expectantly, and raises her eyebrows when Helena keeps stoically silent. “I _mean_ that _I_ came out to our parents this morning. Shaw’s my girlfriend,” Tracy goes on lightly, as though talking about nothing more unusual than next week’s weather forecast. “And now I can’t help but wonder,” Tracy adds, looking between Myka, who’s back to practicing, and Helena, who’s trying not to squirm in her seat, “if I’m not the only rainbow sheep in the family.” 

Helena’s first instinct is to deny everything. Flat-out. But Shaw has _seen_ them, and even if Myka said that Shaw wasn’t the gossipy type, there’s gossip, and then there’s talking to your girlfriend about her sister and _her_ potential girlfriend. Some people might not classify that as gossiping, might feel completely justified talking about it in that setting. 

And that’s the second thing: girlfriend. Tracy is Shaw’s _girlfriend._ Rainbow sheep. Two of them. In one family. 

Or maybe it’s just one big elaborate ruse to get Myka and Helena to implicate themselves. Not that they even _are_ girlfriends – they haven’t talked, anyway, what they want to call what’s between them. So, _technically_ … technically they aren’t girlfriends. But then that wasn’t what Tracy had asked.

Helena knows Myka; trusts Myka. But she barely knows Tracy, and Shaw even less, and she has more to lose than all three of them; she’s the odd one out. 

All this flashes through her head in the fraction of a second. Denial probably isn’t the best way forward, but she can stall some more. “Shaw’s your…” She does sound properly surprised; _that_ is not a big stretch of her acting chops.

“Girlfriend,” Tracy nods. Her face lights up in a radiant smile, and for a moment, Helena can see the family resemblance. “It’s… it’s kinda cool saying this to someone else. Kinda terrifying too, but mostly cool. I mean finally! We’ve been together since April; it’s about freaking time!”

Helena smiles at her, gives it her best effort. “Congratulations.” She clears her throat. “I, um… hope your parents took it well?” 

Tracy shrugs. “Dad grumbled a bit. Tried to ground me,” she adds, laughingly, “can you imagine? Anyway, they’re fine. Shaw’s parents had a bit of a harder time back when she came out to them, but then she has, like, a million siblings, so if one of them’s a weirdo, it’s not that big of a deal. Not that,” she says hastily, “being gay equals being a weirdo. I mean. She’s not. I mean she _is,_ but not for that.” She casts a glance at Shaw, who, Helena notices, is helping Myka up again. Tracy’s eyes soften and harden at the same time. “And she’s _my_ weirdo.”

That expression, right there on Tracy’s face, that is either the acme of acting, or completely genuine. And if that’s how Helena looks when she watches Myka, or vice versa, she can’t fault Claudia or Mrs. Lattimer for catching on.

Then Tracy’s eyes land on Helena again. “Anyway, so Myka totally freaked out when I told Mom and Dad, and at first I thought she had a problem with it. You know, like how it’s one thing when it’s your friend coming out as gay, but another if it’s your sister, kind of thing?” She shakes her head. “Or, like, ‘argh, my baby sister is a sexual being’ – not that I talked about actual sex, of course, but, you know, the words ‘girlfriend’ and ‘gay’ kinda imply-”

Helena holds up her hands in wordless rejection – she does not want to talk about actual sex with the baby sister of her potential girlfriend. At all. 

“Alright, alright,” Tracy concedes, mugging like a maniac. “Anyway, Myka told me, on our way to school, that she was fine with it, so I started wondering ‘then why freak out’, and, you know, I ran a few scenarios in my mind, kind of thing? And one of them was that when I asked my parents what they’d do if one of their daughters told them she was gay, my dear older sister freaked out because she thought that I was about to out her or something. And _then,”_ Tracy says, now turning her whole body towards Helena, “it started to make sense that she is, like, constantly talking about you. For a given value of ‘constantly’, I mean this is Myka, not Sister Mary Loquacious. But still.” She tilts her head. “Am I getting close? Like, at all?”

“Myka talks about me?” Helena can’t help herself; the words just come out.

“All. The. Time.” Tracy says, nodding forcefully with each word. “Which, again, she speaks like twenty words a day, but when five of those are Helena, or Helena-adjacent, you take notice. Myka is nowhere near as subtle as she thinks,” she adds in a voice dripping with sisterly affection. 

A warm flush spreads through Helena that has nothing to do with the late October sun that’s shining on her. She looks back onto the pitch, hoping that this way Tracy won’t notice any changes in her expression, and sees Myka getting the maneuver right, hears the whoop of pride and joy that accompanies the success, and can’t help the smile that’s breaking out on her face. 

“So,” Tracy says matter-of-factly, “Myka is your weirdo then?”

The smile congeals on Helena’s face. 

“Dude, relax,” Tracy laughs. “It’s really no big deal, you know. I mean Dad’s gonna blow a gasket that both his daughters are gay, but other than that-” 

Myka – who Helena’s eyes are riveted on – performs the stepover again, with more confidence than before, and then gives a proud little full-body wiggle. Helena’s heart gives an almost painful lurch – that was ridiculously cute, just like the glasses wiggle Myka does with her nose. It almost cancels out what Tracy just said.

“Dork,” Tracy scoffs benevolently at her sister, then turns to Helena again. “Anyway, what’s got your knickers in a twist? That’s how you Brits say that, right?”

Helena grits her teeth. “I could point out that neither my knickers nor whatever may or may not be going on between Myka and me is any of your business,” she grates. 

“Oh, come off it.” Tracy’s delivery of Received Pronunciation is really, really good, Helena will grant her that. “She’s family, and if you’re her girlfriend, you’re family too. That totally makes it my business. So spill.”

Myka has finally caught Helena telegraphing her silent plea for help, and is making her way over to them. Helena keeps her silence until she’s there, hoping that her arrival will distract Tracy from her unholy crusade. 

“Hey Helena,” Myka greets her when she’s within easy earshot. “Tracy bothering you?”

“I only wanna know if she’s your girlfriend or not,” Tracy protests. 

Myka stops dead in her tracks, so that Shaw, who’s been trotting along behind, promptly runs into her. 

Tracy cackles. “Busted! Your poker face is crap, sis.”

Myka does look like a deer in the headlights, Helena thinks, what with how large her eyes are and all.

“Oh, leave them alone, Trace,” Shaw growls. 

Myka rounds on her. “What the _hell_ did you tell her?!”

“Nothing!” Shaw takes a step back and Helena understands; an angry Myka is formidable, no longer deer-like at all (so perhaps the Myk-Hulk thing isn’t all that out of the blue?), and Shaw is almost a full head shorter than her. “The only thing I did do was ask her, _again,”_ Shaw says with a pointed look at Tracy, “when she wanted to come out to her, your, parents. I swear.”

“What _should_ Shaw have told me?”

“Nothing!” Myka snaps, whirling around to her sister. “Absolutely nothing!”

“Well, she didn’t,” Tracy points out, now getting angry too. “So stuff it, okay? Lay off her.”

“Then why are you-?” Myka gestures between Tracy and a still frozen-to-the-bench Helena.

“It’s called de-fucking- _duction,_ okay,” Tracy gives back. She throws a thumb at Helena and adds, “I mean her poker face is better than yours, but you’re both pretty transparent when a girl knows what to look for. And as I keep telling her, it is _not a big deal_ ; I don’t know why y’all are making such a fuss about it.”

“Maybe that’s because you have no concept of freaking _privacy,_ Trace.” 

“Well, the way you’re going on is as good as admission anyway,” Tracy pouts, complete with leaning back and folding her arms. “Protest too much and suchlike.”

“Tracy!” Myka yells. 

“So say it, Myka,” Tracy challenges her. “Say it’s nothing and I won’t say another word.”

“No, Trace,” Shaw says quietly. “Leave ‘em be. Don’t make this a thing between you and your sister when there’s more people involved.” Her eyes rest on Helena, dark as her own, then turn onto Tracy, silencing whatever words Tracy was in the middle of drawing breath for. “It really _is_ none of our business.”

“Fine.” Tracy throws up her arms. “Fine! Just because for once I wanted to be happy for my sister-”

“Oh cut the crap, Tracy,” Myka spits. 

Tracy falls silent as if pole-axed. 

“You, uh… _do_ know that your sister likes you?” Shaw says at Myka’s shoulder. 

“Well, she has a fucking _weird_ way of show-”

Helena gets up, and Myka stops talking in mid-word. Helena crosses the distance till she’s within an arm’s length, and Myka starts blushing. 

Their poker faces really are crap. Helena has no doubt that her facial expression is all over the place right now.

She takes a deep breath, steels herself. Be bold, she tells herself. Be bold. “Myka, do you… would you like to be my girlfriend?”

Myka’s gaze stays glued to hers for a moment, then flicks to Tracy, Shaw, around the whole pitch, bleachers and beyond. Then it returns to Helena, flicking back and forth between her eyes. “Yeah,” Myka whispers. “Yeah, I… I’d like that.”

Helena nods, once, decisively. Then she turns to Tracy. “Does that answer your question?”

Tracy is staring at them, agape. Then her whole face lights up with glee. “You mean you hadn’t even _asked?”_

Helena shrugs, striving for nonchalance. “Not in so many words, no.” Then she looks back at Myka, trying to gauge if she will be forgiven for springing the question without so much as an iota of discussion beforehand, and in front of witnesses to boot. 

Myka looks… dazed. Stunned. And then a smile spreads across her face that rivals the setting sun, warm and soft and golden. She reaches out her hand, and Helena takes it and interlinks their fingers. 

“Dorks,” Tracy scoffs behind Helena, but her voice is far gentler this time. 

Shaw’s lips are twitching with the tiniest of amused smiles. Then she addresses Helena, “So will you be coming to training, then? I really would like to pick your brain, if you’re interested.”

Helena hesitates, looks at Myka. “Would that be okay with you?”

“All of us are WAGs, anyway,” Tracy chimes in. “Not that anyone else knows that.”

Myka looks confused, and Helena explains, “Wives and girlfriends.” She knows that much of the jargon, at least. She almost laughs when Myka throws a scandalized look at her sister.

“Is _that_ why you watch us train?”

“Uh, _yeah?”_ Tracy replies, as if that should be obvious. “A chance to full-on _ogle_ my girlfriend for two hours without having to think about idiots like Walter or Jerry? Any-fucking-time.” 

The smirk on Shaw’s face deepens. 

“Why didn’t I know that?” Myka asks of the sky. 

“Because you were never interested,” Tracy shrugs. 

“Even Olivia?”

“Yes,” Tracy and Shaw say in unison. 

Shaw adds, “But she and Astrid are not out as a couple yet, so.” She mimes locking her lips. “Anyway, it really is safe.”

“Even _Ben?!”_ Myka seems uncharacteristically unable to wrap her head around this. 

_“Yes,”_ Tracy and Shaw reply again. Helena coughs to hide a smile of her own.

“Oh… okay,” Myka says weakly. “Okay, yeah, I guess,” she tells Helena and tilts her head. “If you wanna?”

This could be an opportunity to test the waters; take the first steps as a couple surrounded by like-minded people, not by a potentially hostile student body. As options go, it’s somewhere between a baby step and a regular one, but nowhere near as huge a leap as coming out to the whole school would be. If you looked at it rationally, it’s a really good idea – and maybe, with someone like Myka, who said she was at Helena’s side whatever may come, maybe this is something Helena can do.

Be bold, Helena reminds herself. 

She nods.


	15. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: next chapter won’t be out until Oct 24!

Myka Bering feels ever so slightly stunned. 

It’s not just that she has a girlfriend now, although that does factor pretty large. 

She also has a sister who _also_ has a girlfriend, and _parents who seem to accept that._ And that is just… just _wild._

And her girlfriend comes and sits in on soccer training, talks and laughs with Tracy, Ben, Olivia and Astrid as though that is the most normal thing in the world – and maybe it is. And maybe it is the exact thing that Helena needs, to start trusting that this could be okay, that this is okay. And maybe Myka needs a bit of that reassurance too, watching Helena sit and talk and laugh in the bleachers until Shaw very pointedly does the stepover – yes, _that_ stepover – past her and scores a goal in their six-on-six and everyone groans and Myka has to get a grip on herself.

And her girlfriend can not only wield a soldering iron but also _play the piano_ – Helena’s fingers at work on electronic components or piano keys should be the dictionary definition of ‘deft’. H.G. Stark indeed.

It’s Tuesday afternoon, and they’re up in the attic, and Helena’s fingers are dancing over the keys, drawing magic from them the likes of which Myka has never heard. Oh sure, every now and then a frown flickers across Helena’s features when she gets a note wrong, but still. Still. 

Myka has never learned to play an instrument; fencing was expensive enough, her father always said. 

But fencing isn’t magic. 

This is.

“I’m afraid I’m terribly rusty,” Helena says after she finishes the piece she’s playing. It sounded vaguely familiar, but really, the only piano pieces Myka can reliably recognize are For Elise and that piece from Twilight. _This_ piece makes Myka feel equal parts sad and uplifted; she wants more, but Helena picks up her bag and pulls her headphones from it. “I’m going to plug these in; I can’t subject you to my practicing.”

“No!” Myka protests. “Please. I don’t mind. You were watching me practice yesterday; I want to- I’d love to listen. If… if that’s okay?”

Helena blinks. Her hands with the headphones in them sink down into her lap. “You really do?”

“Yes!”

A shy smile steals over Helena’s face then. “If at any point you change your mind,” she says, draping the headphones over her neck instead and plucking her ponytail out from underneath, “just let me know, alright?”

Myka nods. Then she asks, “The song you just played – what’s it called?”

“Debussy’s Rêverie.” Helena’s smile is growing stronger. 

“It did sound dreamy,” Myka says, and remembers Helena’s face when she played it. “Are you going to play it again?”

“Would you like me to?”

Myka blinks. She didn’t expect that. “I…” she says slowly, then shakes her head. “No, whatever… whatever you want to play. You don’t have to play anything for me, I mean _you_ found the piano, _you_ repaired it, _you’re_ the one playing. Pick whatever you want.”

“How come there’s a digital piano standing around up here anyway?”

Myka chuckles. “It, uh… went up in smoke two weeks after the school bought it last year. Claudia can tell you more about that. She’s in band; she was there when it happened.”

Helena arches her eyebrows. It is a very elegant gesture that she doesn’t do nowhere near enough, Myka finds, and the piano is a definite accessory in the whole affair. Then Helena’s mouth twists into that secret little smirk again, and she nods. “I do believe I will. Now, what shall I play for us…?”

In the end, she plays another sad piece, one that Myka doesn’t know at all. Still, she can hear the places where Helena’s fingers stumble, where a note seems dissonant among the harmony Helena creates. It doesn’t happen anywhere near often enough for Helena to scowl as darkly as she does when she’s done, but Myka knows perfectionism when she sees it and keeps her quiet as Helena runs through the same piece again. This time, she’s perfect, as much as Myka can tell. 

“Shall we listen to something else, then?” Helena says. “Beethoven always seems so interminable.”

“How about-” Myka begins, and Helena shoots her a sharp look. 

“Do _not,”_ she says, “ask me to play Clair de Lune. That piece has been ruined. _Ruined,_ by that god-forsaken, _sparkly,_ vampire.” She sniffs. Then she relaxes slightly and, after an annoyed sound at the back of her throat, says, “Besides, my fingers aren’t quite nimble enough for that one yet. I’d love to play you some Carnival of the Animals, but right now it’d give me _knots_ if I tried. How about… ah. I know.”

The next piece is a waltz, Myka knows that much, and much shorter than the Beethoven. It is slightly less sad, but still sounds melancholy, and she begins to wonder if that is a reflection of Helena’s state of mind. Then something else occurs to her, and when Helena finishes her third (and perfect) run-through, she asks, “Do you know all of these by heart?”

Helena blushes. “That and muscle memory, yeah,” she explains as she stretches out her fingers and winces. “I can read sheet music, but it’s a slog; much easier for me to listen to a song, pick it apart, _maybe_ with the sheet music on the side,” she admits with a small smile, “until I just know it. You know?”

Myka grins. “Can’t say that I do, but it sounds hella impressive. And your playing sounds amazing.”

Helena’s color deepens. “Well. Thank you.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know that about you,” Myka says, more to herself than to Helena. “How good you are at this. Why didn’t you join the band? Or do you only play classical music?”

Helena shakes her head. “No, I can play more modern stuff too.” Her fingers pick out the opening of a song Myka has heard on the radio. “But… music is…” she casts around for the right words, and ends, “mine. My parents wanted to show us off, that’s why they paid for lessons, but my brother was always better than me-”

“Better?!” Myka can’t stop herself. Helena is _good._ Hard to think that Charles could be even better, but then Helena did say that Charles wanted to try and make his living with music, didn’t she? And you have to be seriously good for that. 

Helena’s smile is a little bit pained now. “Yes,” she says with a sigh. “So whenever my parents wanted us to entertain their guests, Charles took center stage. Neither of us liked that much, but what can you do?” she shrugs. “But when I can play by myself, music is… my own private happy place, I think you could say. It’s easy to be in a world of your own when you play. And that doesn’t really mesh with band practice.”

Myka nods. “Yeah, that makes sense.” Then she realizes something. “But I’m here. Do you- Is that okay?” She wants Helena to have her happy place, all for herself if that’s the way Helena wants it.

“Oh, absolutely,” Helena says with a smile much brighter than the one before. It stuns Myka; it’s so easy, so quick, so convinced: Helena wants her here. In her happy place. “I do not mind you here at all,” Helena confirms. Then her eyebrows crease with concern. “Do _you_ truly not mind listening to me play the same thing over and over again?”

“No! Not at all.”

“Not even Beethoven?” Helena asks, eyebrows arched again.

“That was the second song?” When Helena nods confirmation, Myka admits with a rueful grin, “Well, it was _a bit_ long maybe…” Helena did call it interminable, so Myka can safely say that, right?

“That’s Beethoven for you,” Helena gives an exasperated sigh and eye-roll, and Myka relaxes. “You think it’s over, hey presto, another dal segno. Another repetition,” she explains when Myka looks puzzled. “So ponderous. I adore his way with motifs, but the repetitions can be seriously annoying. Anyway,” she says, shaking herself, “I was thinking of stopping, but if you want, we can switch to modern songs. If you want to sing along?”

“Me, sing?” Myka laughs. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”

“Ah, but is it a solid no?”

Myka laughs harder. “Y-E-S it is.”

“Too bad,” Helena deadpans. Then she grins. “I’m no great singer, either. Best I can say is that I can carry a tune.” She sighs and turns off the piano, drops her headphones in her backpack, and then gets up to unplug and wind up the cord. “I can foresee me coming up here a lot from now on, for practice. If you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Myka says firmly. She shuffles aside to make space for Helena on the futon. “Hey, girlfriend,” she says softly when Helena sits down. 

“Lord, I am so sorry,” Helena says explosively. “I sprang that question on you without any kind of preparation, and in front of your sister and Shaw. Myka, I-”

Myka stops her with a kiss. “I don’t mind.”

“You don’t?” Helena looks completely thrown. “Y-you truly don’t?”

Myka shakes her head. “I mean it’s not how I envisioned it happening, but… one, I’m happy it happened, and two – Tracy! Can you believe it?!”

“You mean her being with Shaw?”

Myka nods. “I _totally_ freaked out when she started coming out to Mom and Dad. I mean the way she was talking, she could have been talking about me and not her – ‘what would you do if one of us was gay’ is what she asked, and I nearly spilled my breakfast there and then.”

“Speaking of breakfast,” Helena sighs and gets up again to retrieve her bag, out of which she takes sandwiches enough for Myka and her. “I’m famished. How about you?”

“I could eat,” Myka shrugs. She isn’t particularly hungry yet, but that’s been par for the course for their attic days – Helena gets hungry before Myka. She also eats more than Myka does, but claims that _obviously,_ American food has less calorie-dense than English food, so she needs to consume more to keep up. 

Myka wouldn’t dream of arguing; Helena’s wrists are as thin and birdlike as ever; obviously her caloric intake is exactly what it needs to be. 

And then Helena says, “I do think I’m gaining weight. I might need a new bra one of these days,” and Myka nearly drops her sandwich. “I wonder if it’s really only the change in diet in general, or if there are hormones allowed in US foods that aren’t in British foods, you know?”

“I’d take your word for it,” Myka says weakly, trying hard as hell not to look at Helena’s boobs. 

“Or maybe I’m just growing again,” Helena muses, staring off into the distance with a somewhat vexed expression. “I thought I was done with that, but I’ve been having those aches and twinges, you know?” When Myka nods that she does indeed know what Helena means, Helena gives her a wistful smile and then a wink. “Wouldn’t mind catching up to your height; I like how tall you are.”

“Y-you do?” Now it’s Myka’s turn to feel thrown off balance. She’s always feels like a giraffe, like she’s sticking out. Then again, that might just be a holdover from her first growth spurt at thirteen that had her tower over _everyone._ By now the difference between her and the other girls in class is a few inches max, and there are three other girls that are 5’10 or over.

“Yes,” Helena says firmly, and nudges her shoulder into Myka’s side. “I do. Anyway,” she goes on after a pause, turning her sandwich around and around as if contemplating where best to bite into it, “you were saying about Tracy?” 

“Oh. Uh. Yes.” Myka relays the tale of Tracy coming out and her parents’ reactions, and their conversation later in the car. “For a while I was wondering if at some point Tracy would be like ‘Aprils’ Fools, I’m not gay, but Myka is, ta-daaa!’ or something.”

Helena nods. “I was thinking set-up to make us fess up.”

“I mean it’s kinda nice knowing that they’re not… disowning her or anything.”

“Sending her off to the colonies,” Helena adds dryly. When Myka shoots her a stricken glance, she just waves it off with her sandwich-free hand. “I told you, my parents didn’t send me here for not being straight. Go on with your story.”

“Well, there isn’t much more to it. Shaw asked me to see her after school, and bring you along, and then there we were.”

“I think this was a result of Shaw’s poking,” Helena says musingly. She finishes her sandwich and takes an apple out of her bag next. Before starting on it, she peers at Myka over it and says, “Here’s my hypothesis: Shaw saw us, then talked to Tracy about coming out to your parents, knowing that if and when Tracy did, it would give you an idea of what to expect.”

“Whoa. D’you really think Shaw would be that… that much of a schemer?”

Helena shrugs. “You know her better than I do. What do you think?” She sinks her teeth into the apple.

“I know she’s really good at strategy, both in soccer and in chess,” Myka says. “So… yeah, maybe? I don’t know. I mean I do have an idea now of what to expect, that is true, but…” she sighs. “It might still be different when it’s me. First, because that means _both_ my parents’ kids are gay, and second, because it’s me, and my dad has never been as easy on me as he is on Tracy.”

“That is just awful,” Helena says darkly. “Myka, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not gonna be long and then I’m out from under his thumb.”

For a fraction of a second, something angry and pained shoots through Helena’s eyes. 

Myka frowns. “What’s wrong?”

Helena drops her gaze. “It’s… it’s nothing. It’s stupid.” She bites into her apple almost vindictively.

“Please.” Myka takes Helena’s free hand, tugs on it in the hope it’ll make Helena look at her again. “Helena, you can tell me everything, okay? I want to know, and I’d never judge.”

Helena swallows, but doesn’t look up. “It makes me think of… you know. Next summer. And I understand, Myka,” she adds quickly, “I do; you want to be out of there, I get it. I just… can’t help linking that with… with losing you,” she ends, and her voice is so quiet Myka strains to hear it.

“You won’t,” she says simply. 

“But-”

“No. Helena, you won’t.” Myka sets her chin. “Because I don’t intend to lose you, okay? So, yeah, okay, maybe we need to go long distance for a while. So what? People do that and come out fine. Why shouldn’t we?”

Helena stares at her, mouth open, half-eaten apple forgotten in her hand. Her lips form unspoken words, and then snap shut. Again, her eyes drop.

“Helena,” Myka says entreatingly. “We both want to make this work.” Right? It’s not just her, is it?

“And we’re both teenagers,” Helena says, half-stubborn, half-resigned. “You heard Ms. Yaeger at the beginning of the semester: our brains aren’t even finished evolving yet. How are we to know that two, five, ten years from now I’ll still be someone you want to hang out with?”

“How are we to know you won’t?” Myka asks back. “I refuse to be that… that defeatist, okay? Pete’s parents were high school sweethearts, and they loved each other to bits. Helena, I won’t give up before we at least try. Summer won’t be the end of this. I know I can’t promise. But I don’t want it to be.”

Helena’s lips are trembling, pressing tight, a thin line flat as the expression in her eyes. Myka knows this look by now; once again Helena is afraid of taking what is offered her. 

Where is the Helena of yesterday, who asked Myka, bold as brass, if she wanted to be her girlfriend? 

Myka nudges Helena’s shoulder with her own. “Come on, girlfriend, carpe diem and all that.”

Helena gives a laugh – only the one, but that’s still better than the flat expressionlessness than before. 

“Vivamus, mea Lesbia,” Myka goes on with a grand gesture, wondering if Helena, who she knows has taken Latin in Britain, has learned this poem too. “Atque amemus – let’s-”

“Live and love, my Lesbia; yes, yes, I know Catullus,” Helena sighs. The corners of her mouth crinkle upwards. “You just want to get to the point in the poem where he talks about giving each other a thousand kisses.”

Myka doesn’t protest that; it’s not as though Helena is wrong. She leans forwards and searches Helena’s lips with her own. They taste of apples. “And then another thousand,” she whispers, and kisses Helena again. 

“You,” Helena says, sinking closer to Myka, “obviously have lost count.”

“That’s his whole point, remember?”

They do lose count, deliciously so. Kissing Helena won’t ever grow old, Myka thinks. It is getting harder to keep herself in check when all she wants to do is feel Helena’s hands on her skin again, or her own hands on Helena’s skin, but the last time that happened Helena freaked out, and the memory of that serves as a very good reminder. So, kissing it is – Myka can be patient. She can content herself with letting Helena set the pace. 

“Myka, can we-” Helena begins, then bites her lip. 

Myka swallows dryly. Does Helena think the same thing she does? Is… is it going to… happen? She straightens her chin, tries to look reassuring. “Everything, remember? You can tell me everything.”

Helena nods. “This is rather a question of _how_ to tell you so you won’t, ah, misconstrue my intent,” she says, and Myka’s thoroughly lost now – this doesn’t sound like anything is going to happen. Or does it? Helena can see the confusion in her face and gives a helpless little laugh. “What I’m going to ask you is not… intended as an invitation to, ah, second base.”

“O… kay?” Myka says slowly.

“Could we… could we unfold the futon and lie down?” Helena’s cheeks are burning, but her eyes are firm, and simply hopeful. “It’s… I would like to… snuggle up a little more, and this configuration is a bit cramped for that.”

“Snug- Yeah! Sure!” Myka nods and withdraws her arms from around Helena. She doesn’t even wonder how this is coming up now; Ms. Yaeger’s additional reading material for the week featured oxytocin, the ‘cuddle hormone’; Helena must have read it too, just like Myka. And, okay, it’s not what Myka initially thought might happen, but that’s okay. Snuggling is good. Oxytocin is good; serves to stabilize a relationship, and that sounds precisely like something that’s good for Helena.

A moment later, they’re working hand in hand to make the futon into a bed. They work well together and are finished in what seems like no time at all, then they both kick off their shoes – Helena is wearing heeled boots these days. Maybe to feel taller? But she really is only two inches shorter than Myka; it doesn’t seem necessary? The thing is: necessary or not, when combined with her button-ups and slacks (and vests, sometimes) the boots make Helena… dashing. Myka has no other word for it. The clothes Helena picks always look amazing on her. 

There’s movement on the futon, and Myka comes back to the here-and-now. Helena is already lying down, on her back, hair free of its ponytail and spread out around her head. She’s reaching out with a facial expression that Myka has no chance of denying. Myka settles onto her side, edging closer to her girlfriend inch by inch until Helena huffs out something between a sigh and a laugh and grasps Myka’s arm and pulls it across her chest. Myka has to follow or dislocate it.

“So, girlfriend,” Helena says lightly when they’re both settled. The words, her voice, sound different through the ear that Myka has pressed to her chest. It’s odd – the new, interesting, good kind of odd, not the weird kind of odd. Then Myka can feel Helena’s nose move at the top of her head, and then Helena’s hand smooths down Myka’s hair and leans her cheek onto it. “You really are okay with that?”

For a moment, Myka has no idea what Helena means – lying like this? Why wouldn’t she be? Then she wonders if Helena is still on the ‘girlfriend question’. “If you mean the girlfriend thing,” she begins nevertheless, and waits for Helena’s nod. She can feel Helena’s head move, but for the life of her couldn’t say if it was a nod or a shake. “Was that a yes or a no?”

Helena chuckles. “A yes.”

“Then, yes,” Myka says firmly. She was surprised, yes, but it was most definitely a pleasant surprise, including how amazed she felt that Helena had worked herself up to even ask the question, much less in front of people. “Yes, I am. I mean, it’s just a… just a new word, right? This is still the same.” She lifts her hand and describes a vague circle around them in the air. “Us, I mean. Isn’t it?” 

It felt still the same, yesterday after leaving Tracy and Shaw, when she drove Helena to the electronics store to buy a soldering gun and a multimeter and resistors. They didn’t interact any differently then, so Myka had assumed… Should she not have? Suddenly she’s nervous. Okay, they had told Tracy and Shaw that they were keeping things quiet and didn’t want to come out to anyone else just now, so that much hasn’t changed, but-

Helena obviously feels the sudden tension in her shoulders; her hand leaves Myka’s head and squeezes the nearest shoulder briefly, then strokes down her spine. “It is, as far as I’m concerned,” she says. “A bit better… defined, perhaps. A label has been put on a situation that didn’t have one before, but the feelings underneath have not changed. That’s how I’d describe it.”

Myka relaxes a little – Helena is now doodling idle designs on her back with feather-like fingers; it is very hard not to relax underneath that. “Yeah,” she says, “me too.” She would dearly love to hear more about those feelings Helena mentioned, to get a better definition of them too. But, she reminds herself, she did already get one better definition; that can be enough for now. 

Girlfriend implies a lot. That can be enough for now.

“Good,” Helena says. Her intake of breath is deep enough to lift Myka’s head and arm right along with Helena’s chest, and that’s the good kind of odd too. Helena’s hand returns to Myka’s hair and flattens it down again. “Your hair is ticklish,” she announces. 

“Sorry.” Myka makes as if to get up or change position, but Helena holds her down. 

“Don’t worry, let me just-” she adjusts the way her head leans against Myka’s, and then says, “There. This’ll work. I like holding you like this.”

“I didn’t know you were a snuggle bug,” Myka says. “I’m learning all kinds of new things about you today, Ms. Stark.”

Helena’s reply is a non-committal hum, and a continuation of the doodling on Myka’s back. Then she asks, “Do _you_ like lying like this?” 

Myka can feel Helena’s breath hitch right after the question is out. She snuggles closer, not just to reassure the other girl, but to settle her limbs more comfortably. Her leg slides across Helena’s, which move a little to accommodate it. “More than like,” Myka says. The only thing that is worrying her a little is that her arm is awfully close to Helena’s boobs, lying across her middle as it is. Is Helena okay with that? Myka doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable, but then her arm is pretty uncomfortable too, and she doesn’t really know how to make things better. Finally, she breaks. “My arm’s feeling a bit weird like this, though,” she admits.

“Same for me,” Helena says in pressed, but relieved tones. “It’s right on top of my sandwich; not a good spot.”

It takes them a few attempts and, yes, Myka’s arm does graze boob territory a couple of times, leaving her mortified (and a little bit thrilled; she is only human, after all). But in the end, they’re settled even more comfortably than before, and Helena is running her hand across Myka’s back again. Myka could definitely get used to that. 

“Your legs are so long,” Helena says. She wiggles her feet a little, and they’re barely at Myka’s ankles. “Enviable,” she adds. 

“I’d give you an inch of them in exchange for having half of your elegance,” Myka sighs. 

Helena hums again. “Here’s another tidbit for you, then – ballet class. That’s the whole secret.”

“Seriously? Piano _and_ ballet?”

Helena’s shoulder shrugs beneath Myka’s cheek. “My parents worked very hard to appear as posh as could be. Charles got to play polo,” she adds in a sour voice. “He hated it, I hated it, we both would have much rather switched. But no,” she sighs, “a girl does ballet, not sports, and god forbid a boy wants to _dance.”_

“Ugh,” Myka commiserates. “I’m sorry.” She weighs going on for a bit, then does add, “But if that’s the secret to your, uh, elegance, it wasn’t all bad. Right?”

Helena sighs again. “I suppose.”

“It, uh… was one of the things I noticed. At the beginning. About you. Um.”

This time, Helena’s exhalation seems more of an unvoiced laugh than a sigh. “Well, in that case…”

Myka nudges her shoulder into Helena’s arm and grins. “Anyway, what else do I not know about you yet?”

“I think,” Helena replies archly, “that for fairness’ sake _I_ should be asking _you_ that.”

There’s very little Myka can say against that. What does Helena not know about her yet…? She thinks for a bit – what she wants to do after school: check. What her hobbies are: check. What kinds of movies and books she likes: check. That she has very little knowledge of classical music: check. That her family can be challenging: check. “I dunno,” she says finally. 

“May I ask you something, then?”

“Sure?”

“What else did you notice?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘one of the things’ you noticed. What else did you-”

“Oh my god.” Myka wants to hide her face, but – the way she’s lying, if she does that, she’ll be burying it in Helena’s… um, chest, and that’s… not gonna happen. 

“Well?” There’s a challenge in Helena’s words, and amusement too, but the thing is – _the thing is,_ you gotta feel secure in order to be challenging and amused, and that’s a good thing, when Helena has felt so insecure before, right? So maybe, _maybe_ Myka can go along with that. Should go along with that.

“Um…” She draws it out. It’s not that hard; she _is_ blushing, she _is_ embarrassed. “I thought you looked like a movie star,” she admits finally. She’ll keep her wondering about the applicability of ‘chiseled’ to the female chin to herself for now; supporting Helena in feeling more secure only goes so far. “And then I realized how smart you were. And that was pretty amazing.”

“Why thank you.” 

“Oh my god,” Myka laughs, “that was the most British you have ever sounded.”

Helena joins in; Myka can hear it, feel it, is moved by it quite literally. “I can ramp it up any time you like, darling,” she says, and the last word is delightfully British too, all long-drawn-out ‘ah’ and no ‘r’ in sight. In hearing? Noticeable, anyway.

It is also a term of endearment. And if being called ‘girlfriend’ is the good kind of odd, being called ‘darling’, even only in jest, is _doing things_ to Myka. She lifts her head and kisses Helena’s jaw.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Helena asks, smirk audible in her voice. 

“That’s an ‘I liked the darling’,” Myka replies.

Helena hums. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

It is so nice, to lie this way. To hear Helena’s voice partly through her ears and partly through her body, to feel Helena’s chest rise and fall softly with her breath, to feel Helena’s fingers still drawing their designs on Myka’s back. It’s as if everything else just… just drops away; every concern or worry or deadline or hateful comment. Just drops away beneath the ease, the coziness of this. 

Oxytocin is one hell of a drug, Myka resolves, and wonders why this kind of thing is only in the additional reading material and not taught outright. Like, if everyone felt like this on the regular, how, why would anyone still want to hurt other people? World peace, right here. “D’you feel this too?” Myka asks, because she can’t not. 

Helena hums again, questioningly this time. 

Myka bites her tongue, but forges on, trying to wrap words around what she feels. “Like everything is just… alright, like this? Like this is just the rightest thing you’ve ever done?”

Helena’s breathing changes, becomes a little shorter, a little shallower. Her fingers still on Myka’s back, then resume their motions. A deep breath moves Myka’s head and arm again, and then there’s a “…yes” that’s more a sigh than a word. 

Myka raises herself slightly to check, but Helena isn’t crying. Once again she isn’t crying; her eyes are totally, completely devoid of tears, but she curls into Myka with a pain that’s palpable and Myka pulls Helena towards her, closer, closer, until they’re entangled with each other and she can cradle Helena to her the way she wants to, wrapping the other girl’s body in her limbs the way she wants to wrap the other girl’s heart in-

In all of the love she feels for her. 

This _has_ to be love. Myka doesn’t even feel the need to consult a ‘How to tell if you love someone’ checklist; this _has_ to be it. 

The realization is… overwhelming. In a way, being so entangled with Helena helps ground her; Myka is half convinced she’d be floating otherwise, expanding like a cloud of gas, intangible, ethereal, she feels so light. Light, invincible, incredible, and all because of this girl in her arms who trusts her so and makes her laugh and smile and feel this way and hurt for her and-

It is so much. It fills Myka all the way until she feels she’s leaking at the seams, and yeah her eyes are spilling over a little bit, but there’s just no other way to _contain_ this, is there?

If only Helena could feel it. 

Because Helena is for sure not floating or feeling invincible; Helena is hurting. 

Myka opens her mouth to say something, and then shuts it again as a memory hits her over the head with a warning glare. Helena couldn’t handle Myka telling her she cared for her; the L-word would _not_ go down well right now, Myka is one hundred percent certain of that. No, best leave it at ‘girlfriend’ and ‘darling’, and stick with hugging for now. There’s a lot that can be said without words, after all. 

She shifts their bodies a little, holds Helena even closer to her, one hand cradling the nape of Helena’s neck, the other securely around her shoulders, one leg hooked over Helena’s to complete the full-body hug. Tries to tell her, with every inch of herself, that she’s there, that Helena is not alone and won’t ever be if Myka can help it. Wishes, for a moment, that she was the kind of empath that could transmit feelings, could wrap someone in sensations and emotions and reassurance just as much as in arms and legs. It’s beating in her, pulsing, radiating; she wishes Helena had a sense that could pick it up, no need for words, no possibility of misunderstandings, just feel what’s in Myka’s heart waiting to be found, waiting to be received.

She loves Helena. It’s soaring and glorious, it’s cautious and tender, it’s all-encompassing and singularly focused, it is the most alive she’s ever felt, the strongest- 

And the most precarious. Because flying always carries the risk of falling.

Myka tries to push the thought away, but once it’s there, she can’t unthink it. The only thing she can do is tell herself what she told Helena: they both want this; they’ll find a way. With _this_ at their backs propelling them forward, how can they not? Myka feels like she could face anything, with this at her back; _anything_ and come out victorious. 

She just hopes, wishes, that one day Helena will feel the same way too. 

Oxytocin, she’s heard, is good for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem mentioned here is Catullus’ [Carmen 5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_5). The musical pieces are [Debussy’s Rêverie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKGRssiqKV0), [the Adagio from Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuN3yCmHb_U), and [Brahm’s Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 39 No. 15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oy0w7eLgRk). Yes, Helena is a classical music nerd, mostly because I am; I’m not well-versed enough in more recent music to have written what I wrote with modern pieces instead of classical ones. And yes, you better believe I'm a Latin-slash-Catullus nerd too, even without his connection to Sappho.


	16. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New chapter up today, and two more tomorrow!

October is passing quickly – Myka is busy finalizing her Early Decision application to Yale, and Helena mostly stays out of it; Myka is flustered enough as it is. Helena busies herself with the piano; her fingers are shaping up again, to the point where she’s confident enough to play more demanding pieces for Myka every now and then. 

They snuggle a lot.

And as improbable as that article about oxytocin had sounded in Ms. Yaeger’s additional reading material, snuggling, just simply being in close physical contact, really does seem to help Helena feel more balanced. Between the snuggles and her music, she’s feeling happier than she has in… in months. Since Aunt Tee died, really, and how could she not, when Aunt Tee was the only other person she’d – no, not snuggle with; not since she was a much younger child. But voluntarily play music for, yes, and have this kind of loving connection to. Helena still misses her; Aunt Tee’s absence is still a hole in her heart that Helena stumbles into at the most inopportune moments, but now… maybe its edges are a bit less sharp? Yes, that would be a way to put it. And Helena can’t help but think that this has to do with Myka, and the attic, and hours spent on the futon together. 

When she’s by herself, when Myka isn’t up in the attic with her, Helena works on the Carnival of the Animals; it is her favorite piece, or collection of pieces rather, and she really wants to play them for Myka one day. Myka has very little knowledge of classical music; if she recognizes a piece, it’s usually from an ad or a movie soundtrack (Helena spares a moment to growl and curse at Twilight once again; it is not fair that people now associate the beauty of Clair de Lune with a bloody sparkling vampire and his lackluster girlfriend rather than, say, gentleman thieves standing in front of the Bellagio fountain). However, Myka is an attentive and appreciative listener, and soaks up everything Helena tells her. 

Another movie night comes around, and Helena is relieved to see that Mrs. Lattimer ordered a pizza with one half not smothered in cheese; _that_ week was an experience she’d rather not repeat. After they’ve decimated it, Pete addresses all of them. “So, my birthday’s coming up-”

“Eighteen, man!” Claudia interrupts, pummeling his arm excitedly. 

“-and I wanted to let you know,” he says, trying to push her aside with his elbow, “it’ll be just the same as every year; gruesome potluck and spooky movies all night long. Jeannie’s gonna be here-”

“Awesome!” Claudia and Steve intone in unison, then grin at each other. 

“His sister; she’s in college,” Myka informs Helena, who nods gratefully.

“-with her _boyfriend,”_ Pete adds pointedly, to ‘oohs’ and more grins around the table. He joins in. “Right? He’s gonna meet the family and Team Teen Avengers; _that’s_ gonna be fun! Anyway, Ms. Stark,” he grins at Helena, “you’re invited too, of course, just so you know. I mean I thought that went without saying, but I’ve been informed-” without so much as a change of expression, Mrs. Lattimer reaches over from where she’s sitting next to him and ever-so-gently smacks the back of his head, “-that I shouldn’t assume you’d think so too. So.” He sits up straighter, then performs an elaborate bow that almost has his elbow in his mother’s face. “H.G. Wells, would you do me the kindn-”

“Yes!” Helena laughs quickly, before he can make even more of a fool of himself – then again, Pete very obviously lacks that particular sense. “Alright, alright. Just one question: what is a potluck?”

The whole table stares at her. Then Pete says, with the widest grin yet, “Oh wow. Do Brits don’t do this?”

“How would I know?” Helena says a bit peevishly. “If you would-”

“Everyone brings something to eat or drink,” Leena quickly explains. “And since it’s Halloween, the theme is gruesomeness in all its forms.”

“Last year Josh and I brought Russian Roulette zombie eyeballs,” Claudia says proudly. “Big green olives stuffed with fresh cheese-”

“And fish eggs!” Josh interjects.

“-and fish eggs, yeah, and in some of them, it really was just the tiniest dab of fresh cheese for show and behind that, a teaspoon full of wasabi.”

Josh grins. “It was pretty epic.”

“Yeah, so anything goes that looks like body parts, or alien growth, or some kind of sick disease,” Pete nods. 

Helena’s eyebrows are high on her forehead. It sounds utterly horrific, and very appropriate considering both the time of year and whose birthday party this is. “I see.”

“I call dibs on the drinks this year,” Claudia says. “Boy, do I have an awesome idea.”

“Helena, we can bake something together if you like,” Leena offers, and Helena quickly nods, feeling relieved. 

“Cake!” Pete cries happily. “Or cupcakes! Or brownies! Leena, you’re the best baker ever!”

“Sure,” Leena smiles at him. 

“Okay, that’s dessert and drinks taken care of!” Pete rubs his hands. “Main dish?”

“Jeannie said she’d make a meat dish,” Mrs. Lattimer announces. “Helena, is that good with you, or are you vegetarian? Any other considerations that we should be aware of?” 

Helena starts to shake her head, then stops herself and shrugs with a grimace. “Not smothered in cheese?” she ventures, and everyone laughs in commiseration. Steve, who’s sitting on Helena’s left, nudges her shoulder with his. 

“I’d gathered that,” Mrs. Lattimer says with a wry smile. “So we’ll just need a few side dishes.” She nods at Steve and Myka. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something spectacularly garish. Oh!” She looks at Helena again. “And the party is usually a sleepover. These kids,” she gestures around the table, “all have known each other for years, so nobody has a problem with it, but if you would rather not, that’s perfectly alright. It’s your choice, and there won’t be any repercussions if you choose not to stay the night.” She shoots a glare around the table that says there better not be. “And if you do feel comfortable, just bring a pair of PJs and a toothbrush and whatever other toiletries you need. No need for a sleeping bag or anything, we have everything you need right here.” She gestures around herself, and Helena nods. The Lattimer house is huge, much larger than she’d have thought necessary for two people (or three, counting Jeannie), even if one of them is Pete, whose emanations can be quite toxic. “And no need to decide right now,” Mrs. Lattimer adds. “I’m not putting you on the spot. And you should probably talk it over with Irene, too. If you let me know day of, that’ll be plenty.”

Helena nods again. “Thank you,” she tells Mrs. Lattimer and Pete, too. “I appreciate being invited.”

“Sure thing,” Pete beams at her. 

As they settle down to watch Thor, Myka takes her usual spot next to Helena on the smaller couch. And when the Asgardians start battling with the Frost Giants, Myka bends over and whispers, “I gotta tell you something – I’m really bad with scary movies. Pete’s birthday is the one day of the year that I’ll tolerate them.”

Helena turns towards her, her lips forming a soundless “Oh.” 

“Yeah.” Myka is hanging her head. “It’s… like, I understand on a rational level that it’s just a movie, but… the lizard part of my brain can’t put that filter on, something like that. It’ll insist that there’ll be a monster around the next corner, for days, _weeks_ afterwards. Always waiting for the jump scare, you know?”

Quite without thinking, Helena takes Myka’s hand. “That sounds bloody awful,” she whispers.

Thor gets sent to Earth in a flurry of special effects, and Myka’s eyes flicker to the screen for a moment before they return. “Yeah…” she sighs again. “Anyway, what I really wanted to tell you is that because of that, I, uh… I get a bedroom of my own. I just can’t handle sleeping in the same room with other people after all that; every noise they make makes me jump out of my skin. But… um… if you wanted to… If you …” she clears her throat, looking everywhere but at Helena now, “wanted to, um… join me? I’d like that.” 

The movie calms down, and Myka leans back and withdraws her hand from under Helena’s. 

Helena is not calming down whatsoever; on the contrary. Her thoughts are running wild, and the vast majority of them are centering on what happened when she last shared a room with someone. Myka can’t know that that’s what she’s thinking about; it was hard enough telling her about Giselle. Myka doesn’t know – well, maybe she has an idea of what kind of hornets’ nest she’s poked into suggesting this; her eyes are solidly on Helena now, and crinkled with worry. But she can’t know why Helena feels like she’s moments away from hyperventilating.

Being caught in a room with someone is why she’s here, and while she doesn’t feel ashamed, not really, it’s still not really something she’s ready to tell- 

Her girlfriend. 

That is who Myka is. Her girlfriend, who has promised to be by her side, in her corner, come what may. Her girlfriend, who looks one moment away from reaching out to Helena with worry, and who calms Helena right down with that very expression. Who Helena can smile at, in the darkness of the room, and receive a smile back from, a smile that is solely theirs, and brighter than the sun of New Mexico on the screen. 

If she joins Myka, her girlfriend, in that extra bedroom, their friends will know that that’s what they are to each other. There is no way around it – if Helena decides to sleep over, and decides to do so in Myka’s room instead of with everyone else: everyone else will know. 

And for the first time, Helena finds herself thinking that maybe that’s… alright? It’s going well enough at the football training sessions; no one there has talked about them. All of them know how things are; not one of them would out someone, Helena is sure of it. 

She looks around the room, at Claudia, Josh and Steve sprawled together on the big sofa, at Leena sitting lotus-style on an easy chair by herself, at Pete who sits on the floor with ample space around him because he’s far too vigorous in his appreciation of whatever they’re watching to do so in close proximity to anyone. None of them would out Myka and her, either. Now that she thinks about it, she wonders why that hasn’t clicked earlier. Steve said so, outright, right at the very beginning. 

And Mrs. Lattimer, who has retired to her office once the second movie started, has kept quiet as well.

She’s safe here. 

Helena takes a deep breath as the realization spreads through her like the warmth of a bellyful of tea. 

She is among friends, Team Teen Avengers – no matter the silliness of the name: she is safe here. 

This is much easier to think about than what happened last time she shared a room with someone. She wants to leave that behind anyway, right? So. Better to focus on this than on that. Better to not think about that at all, and think about what’s right in front of her – or rather, sitting next to her on the couch. 

She lets her hand creep towards Myka’s, slow enough that Myka can easily pull away if she’s not okay with it. But her hand is encountered by a happy squeeze and a shift in Myka’s posture that settles her closer to Helena than before. And when Helena looks over to the other girl, the corners of Myka’s mouth are twitching into a smile, and her eyes are wide and relieved and radiant. 

The warmth Helena feels is everywhere now, spreading through her like she imagines sap rising through a tree in spring, lifting her spirits with it until she’s on top of the world. She doesn’t feel afraid; for once she doesn’t feel afraid. She is not alone. She is not by herself. She is with Myka; she is among friends: she is safe. 

She takes a deep breath, in, out. It feels beautiful. 

Something glassy splinters in the movie. It startles her, and that brings her closer to Myka’s side, and if the movie goes on like this, they’ll be touching shoulder to toe at the end of it, and would that be so bad?

If Claudia peeks over and sees them holding hands and gives a small, silent expression of squee – would that be so bad?

If Leena catches her eyes and sends a beaming smile her way – would that be so bad?

If, a few minutes later, Josh’s eyes wander over to them and his eyebrows rise and he gives them a grin and a surreptitious one-handed thumbs-up – would that be so bad?

If Josh not-so-subtly nudges Steve’s back with the knee Steve is leaning against, and Steve starts, follows the direction of Josh’s nod with his gaze, starts again and then beams – would that be so bad?

By the end of the movie, it’s only Pete who hasn’t looked over, and Pete knows anyway. 

And Helena still feels safe. She is fully touching Myka’s side now, as predicted, hands still intertwined and resting on Myka’s thigh, which Helena’s thumb has flicked across a couple of times. 

Pete groans as he gets up off the floor to turn the lights back on – and stops halfway through, crouched comically as his eyes land on Myka and Helena with a veritable if inaudible clang. Then he grins, and then he straightens. And then he gives them a double thumbs-up.

Claudia snorts. “Smooth, Lattimer. You can be glad we all saw it already anyway, otherwise you’d be in deep doo-doo right now.”

“You what?”

“We _saw,_ dude,” Josh chuckles. “Like, _hours_ ago.”

“Forty-seven minutes,” Steve corrects. He’s meticulous like that.

Helena smiles at him; she likes his meticulousness. 

Pete stares at the three friends on the couch for a moment longer, then scoffs and finally turns on the overhead lights. “You might have seen, but I have _known.”_

“Guys,” Myka says plaintively, “this isn’t about who’s known for how long, okay?”

“That’s right,” Pete says, nodding along, “the only thing that matters is that you guys are happy.” He pauses for a beat. “And that I was the first.”

Myka rolls her eyes, then tells Helena in a stage whisper, “The only thing to do at this point is ignore him; any attention will only make it worse.”

Leena bites back a smile. As if they’re in the peanut gallery, Claudia, Josh and Steve nod solemnly. Then they all burst out laughing, and Helena can’t help but join in. Pete’s pouting has to be seen to be believed. He doesn’t hold it for long, though, but plops down on Helena’s other side with enough force to almost jostle her from her seat. 

“So, you guys got an announcement to make, then?”

On her other side, Myka takes a deep breath. Helena squeezes her hand and smiles at her, content to let her talk. 

“We’re together,” Myka says simply. 

A beat passes, then they are swamped, first by cries of congratulations and then the bodily equivalent – hugs and nudges and an awkward shoulder bump by Josh, who isn’t a hugger – as their friends celebrate the news. 

“But not out yet,” Myka adds after the hubbub has died down. “My parents don’t know, and neither do Helena’s. The only people who know are in this room, plus Tracy, her friend Shaw – don’t ask me why, long story – and… and your mom, Pete.”

“Yeah, right,” Pete scoffs, and Helena can’t fault him – it does sound like a ‘yer mum’ joke.

“No, Pete,” Myka protests, “I mean it.”

“She’s right,” Helena chimes in. It’s her who’s talked with Mrs. Lattimer, who’s seen the certainty in the woman’s blue-gray eyes. 

“What!” Pete sounds outraged. “She never told me!”

Myka shoots him a long, pointed glance that he returns stubbornly. 

Then he sighs. “Fine, yeah, okay. And none of us will tell anyone either. Scout’s honor.” He holds up three fingers, then gently cuffs Helena’s shoulder. “That’s a solemn promise,” he explains. 

Helena looks at him for a moment, then laughs and rolls her eyes. “I _know,”_ she says. “We do have scouts in England.”

He spreads his arms with a wounded expression. “How would _I_ know? I mean you guys don’t have freaking _potlucks.”_

“I suppose we _have_ them; I just didn’t know the term.” Her parents most certainly never entertained that way, but it seems a sensible enough solution to make sure that the cost of a party doesn’t rest on one person alone. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Pete says, already distracted by the next thought. “So you guys gonna…” he wags his eyebrows and, next to Helena, Myka already groans before he has any more words out, “share a room at my birthday, then?”

“TMI, Pete,” Claudia hollers and smacks his shoulder on her way back to the other couch. “Way TMI.”

 _“Anyway,_ what are we gonna watch next time?” Josh asks, in a valiant but very transparent attempt to change the topic. 

It works, though, to Helena’s surprise. Pete immediately insists on the next two movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (of course, because the first one of them is Captain America’s first solo movie); Claudia, meanwhile, suggests a ‘gay double feature in honor of today’s revelation’, which is seconded by Leena – the discussion is lively, and Helena can lean back and enjoy it. It doesn’t matter to her what they’ll watch. Okay, she’ll veto anything with spiders the same way Myka vetoes anything with tentacles, but other than that, she doesn’t care. All she cares about is that she’s among friends. 

On their ride home, Leena is quiet for a long time. Then she says, “I think Auntie suspects, too.”

Helena blanches. If Mrs. Frederic-

“She wouldn’t mind,” Leena adds quickly, casting a quick glance at Helena before looking back at the road again. “She green-lighted the GSA. She just can’t sponsor it herself; no matter how progressive the school district is, she’s still a black woman, and this is still Colorado Springs. She can only push things so far.”

Helena nods. She hasn’t thought about it before, but what Leena says makes sense. 

“But she’s supportive, absolutely. She’s told me it wouldn’t be any kind of problem at all if _I_ should ever come out.” Again, Leena takes her eyes off the road to shoot Helena a brief, reassuring smile. “I don’t think it would be any different for you.”

“She might feel obligated to tell my parents,” Helena points out. 

Leena weighs her head. “Only, I think, if she thought this would in some way endanger you. And I highly doubt that.” She takes one hand off the steering wheel to give Helena’s shoulder a squeeze. “I for one think that this is good for you. You seem so much more… relaxed lately. More at ease? It’s hard to describe, but good to see.”

Helena is at a loss for words. 

Two months ago, hearing that someone has watched her so closely, and what’s more, without her noticing, would have set off all the alarms. All of them. Fight or flight or freeze, deny, pull back, abandon mission. 

But Leena has become a friend, and she thinks that what she’s observing is ‘good to see,’ so Helena doesn’t need to be alarmed. She is still safe. 

And so instead of fighting or flying or freezing, she lets the warmth wash over her again. “Thank you,” she says quietly, even though she’s not exactly sure what she’s grateful for. 

Leena gives her another brief look, and as though she, conversely, knows precisely what Helena is grateful for, says, “You’re welcome.” Then she pulls into the driveway – Pete does live quite close by. “Let’s brainstorm ideas tomorrow at breakfast, about what to bake?”

The change of topic takes Helena by surprise. “Uh… sure, yes. Of course.” 

Leena beams at her. “Awesome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I know plenty of people love Twilight, and that’s absolutely alright with me – I’ll never yuck anyone’s yum. But seventeen-year-old Helena… is a bit of a snob about some things. So if you, dear reader, love Twilight, please continue to do so. No judgement from me.


	17. Helena

The next morning, Helena wakes and doesn’t puke, which is sort of expected, considering that she _hasn’t_ had a ton of cheese (or other greasy food) the day before. She is spotting, though, and crampy, and that is unexpected, in that it’s early by about a week. Her next pill break starts Friday; she shouldn’t be spotting today. And those are definitely cramps, not growing pains. Helena’s period is reliable – of course it is; she’s on the pill. Last month’s period didn’t really happen but that was the week when she was sick as a dog; she remembers being relieved about not having to deal with tampons and cramps along with all that. And with the ups and downs with stomach bugs she had in the weeks before that… that kind of thing can mess with the pill, Helena has read that somewhere. 

She sighs and grabs a panty liner – the amount of spotting doesn’t seem to warrant a tampon just yet, but she puts a few in her pocket anyway, just in case. Who knows if the blood is just lying in wait in her uterus, or something. She also takes her pill; schedule is schedule. 

Discussing possibilities for Pete’s potluck with Leena over breakfast takes Helena’s mind off the ache inside of her, and at some point, thankfully, the Tylenol kicks in. Sundays in the Frederic household are quiet, sometimes downright lazy. All three of them like to read, and so long hours are spent quietly focused on books, for homework or enjoyment. Helena has been researching not just oxytocin and its effects, but also adjacent topics like parent-child conflicts and resilience. She has gained very interesting insights – and new gratitude for having had Aunt Tee in her life, even if it was cut short too soon. When she reads sentences like ‘Most resilient children have a strong relationship with at least one adult, not always a parent, and this relationship helps to diminish risk associated with family discord,’ she knows who she has to thank for having come through this much of her life relatively unscathed. Not completely, she does recognize that, but it could have been worse. 

Aunt Tee loved Helena, deeply and unconditionally. Charles too. And she always took care to tell them both so. No matter how distant or downright hostile her parents were, Helena always knew that she was loved; no matter where they moved, she always knew she had a place in Aunt Tee’s home. She always knew that neither she nor her brother deserved to be treated the way her parents did, even though that was an opinion Aunt Tee didn’t express in so many words. But Helena still knew, and that knowledge gave her the strength to endure. 

And Aunt Tee steered Helena and Charles towards different values than those their parents held, by pointing them towards specific books, by questioning them about fictional characters’ actions and motives, and not least by living them herself – kindness, above all; taking responsibility; how to weigh selflessness against self-preservation; how to discern between word and act, intent and outcome.

Two weeks every summer sufficed to lay the groundwork; fifty weeks the rest of the year weren’t enough for Helena’s parents to thwart it.

She wonders how Charles is faring. She’s been thinking about contacting him, off and on these past few weeks, but never brought herself to actually write him an email – the only mode of contact she has left of him. 

As she stares at her phone, a new text alert pops up and she almost drops it in surprise – but it isn’t from Charles, it is a text from Myka. 

_Could I ask a massive favor of you? And probably a smaller one from Leena?_

_Of course,_ Helena quickly replies, curious more because of the second question rather than the first.

_Would you consider coming to the bookstore? For the day? I’d be all by myself otherwise, and couldn’t leave the store unattended for, say, a bathroom break. Re Leena: she’s gonna have to drive you here, but I’ll take you back home tonight, I promise._

_I’ll ask. Give me a minute._

Helena lowers her phone and clears her throat, and both Mrs. Frederic and Leena look up from their respective books – you don’t see the family resemblance often, but in this moment, it’s clear as day. Helena quickly relays Myka’s request, and receives two nods in short order; Leena gets up from her chair immediately. “Front door in five,” she says, and heads for the kitchen.

Helena nods, even though Leena can’t see, dashes off a quick _be there in 15_ to Myka and runs up to her bedroom to change from sweatpants to regular trousers. 

She meets Leena in the front hallway, where the other girl presses a brown paper bag into her hands. “Lunch,” Leena explains. “Let’s go.”

The drive is brief; it takes less than ten minutes for the blue storefront with the white-and-gold sign ‘Bering and Sons’ to appear. Helena hasn’t been here before and isn’t sure what she expected – the store wouldn’t seem out of place in any of the English town centers she’s been to, would be a place that she’d be drawn into without in any way questioning it. But that sign-

“Does Myka have brothers I don’t know of?” she asks Leena when they stop just outside it. 

Leena sighs. “No,” she says. “Be kind when you ask Myka; she hates it. Go on; I can’t stop here long.”

“Of course.” Helena scrambles out the door, paper bag in one hand, phone and her bag in the other. “Thanks, Leena,” she says before she quickly closes the car door and steps away; there’s a car behind Leena’s that’s already revving impatiently. 

Leena waves as she pulls away, and Helena turns back to the store. There’s a buzzer that rings out when she walks through the door – she’d half expected a jolly little tinkle, and the buzzer is a jarring subversion. 

“One moment!” Myka’s voice comes from the room behind the one Helena is in.

“Only me,” Helena replies.

“Oh!” she hears from the other room, and then Myka appears in the archway that connects the two rooms, glasses low on her nose and hair slightly frizzier than usual. “Hi.” She gives an awkward little wave. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course,” Helena says, walking over and taking in the store. It truly is the amazing kind of bookstore, from the scent of aged paper to the old tomes lining the shelves. The first room seems to be dedicated to contemporary works and textbooks; the second room is darker, and some of the shelves have lockable doors. This must be where the more expensive and/or fragile books are kept. As she steps further in, she can see the register and two doors marked ‘private’ at the back. And she can see that it’s not just Myka’s hair that’s frazzled; Myka herself has a distinctly harried look to her. 

“God, I’m so glad you’re here.” The words leave Myka in a rush and she pulls Helena all the way into the second room so that the hug she steals for herself can’t be seen from the door. 

Helena has barely closed her arms around Myka’s waist when Myka pulls away again, first crossing her arms and then immediately dropping them again, hands clenching and unclenching. Helena frowns at the sight. “Myka, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Myka replies, just that little bit too quickly. “It’s just… Dad’s away on yet another estate sale trip; it’s the third this month and the other two haven’t really yielded anything and yeah, okay, Christmas season is around the corner and sales will go up then, but he and Mom were looking really worried yesterday, and Mom’s gone with Tracy to the kindergarten that Tracy volunteers at, they’re having a fall funds drive and bake sale and needed more volunteers, and that means I’m all by myself and usually that wouldn’t be a problem but-”

“Myka, breathe, for god’s sake,” Helena reminds her with a worried smile. Myka is bent almost double; something _is_ wrong. 

“I got my period this morning, after they were gone,” Myka presses out. “And it’s bad. And I need to use the bathroom. I’ll… I’ll be right back, okay?” And she hastens through one of the ‘private’ doors. 

Helena stares after her, hand half raised, mouth half open. Then she snaps the latter shut and drops the former, and looks around the place. Okay, she tells herself, okay. Myka will be back in a moment, just mind the store until then. Literally. Shouldn’t be too hard. The store is empty of customers right now, and the buzzer will alert her if that changes, and in that case she’ll just talk with them to tide them over until Myka comes back. She squares her shoulders and walks behind the register desk; there’s a drawer under the tabletop but it is locked and the key nowhere in sight. It might be in the register, Helena thinks, but she has no idea how to work it, so she just leaves her phone and bag on the floor under the desk where they won’t be easily apparent, and nudges the paper bag in front of them for good measure. A macroeconomics textbook lies open on the desk and Helena twists her lips in distaste, then walks around the store to familiarize herself with its layout and contents. 

The lockable shelves indeed house rare editions and collectors’ items, presented between old-looking knick-knacks like miniature globes, pince-nez and quill pens. The other shelves are far more prosaic – but, just like Myka explained back when she gave Helena the promo posters for His Dark Materials, there is indeed no science fiction or fantasy shelf, even though the crime shelf is full to bursting. Helena shakes her head. Why some people feel this snobbish towards certain genres, she has never understood. The store does not have comics on its shelves, either, and that, too, is snobbishness. This must be why Myka said that she works at the library to get access to more books than just what’s here – and why growing up in a bookstore might not be the actual paradise that the phrase evokes.

Myka is still gone, and Helena emphasizes. Her own periods used to be excruciating until she went on birth control two years ago, and she well remembers not just the pain but all the other issues too. Which reminds her; she needs a new prescription, so she needs to find a gynecologist – she resolves to ask Myka if she knows one once Myka is back. In the meantime, she keeps browsing the shelves.

There’s the sound of a door opening behind her, and at the same time, a breathy, “I’m so sorry,” and Helena turns around and smiles. 

“No problem at all, darling,” she says.

Myka ducks her head, as if startled by the pet name, and flushes high in her cheeks – but she smiles. Just the one corner, but she smiles. Then her face clouds again, and she runs a hand across her belly with a grimace. “Ugh. Really, I am sorry.”

“Really,” Helena emphasizes, “it is not a problem. I know how it is. Have you taken pain meds of any kind?”

Myka nods. “Ibuprofen, an hour ago. I’ll be fine in a moment; it’s just… it kinda gets really bad when I go to the bathroom, you know?”

“Oh, I know.” Helena steps closer and rubs Myka’s arm. “Go and sit down?” She nods over to the counter. “Leena packed us lunch, by the way.”

“Oh, thank god,” Myka murmurs and makes a beeline over to the register and the stool behind it. She disappears behind it, then rises holding the paper bag aloft. “This, I assume?” When Helena nods, she goes on, “Would you mind if I ate something already? I’m just… Tracy calls it feeding the blood.”

“No, go ahead,” Helena says, with a smile and an encouraging gesture. 

“Oh my god,” Myka enthuses as she digs through the bag, “she packed so much; this is so great.” She takes out a sandwich triangle and bites into it, then gives a muffled groan of delight that wakes a tingle in Helena that, considering the situation, is completely inappropriate. “Leena’s such a great cook,” Myka says, barely swallowing enough of the sandwich to get the words out. “Baker too. I have no idea why she doesn’t want to go to culinary school.”

“Probably the same reason why I wouldn’t want to study music,” Helena says with a shrug, leaning against one of the book tables. “It’s wonderful as a pastime, but not so much when you have to do it for a living. I never want music to feel like a chore, you know?”

Myka nods, mouth too full to speak. Then she swallows. “Yeah, I get that.” Her phone beeps with a notification, and she takes a bunch of keys from her pocket and opens the drawer to retrieve it. While she looks at it, Helena goes over to pick up her own phone and purse.

“Mind if I put them in there?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Myka says absentmindedly and then directs a grunt of disappointment at her phone screen. “Ugh. Spam.” She tosses her phone on top of Helena’s and pushes the drawer shut a bit more forcefully than Helena has come to expect.

“Are you waiting for a specific email?”

“Mr. Nielsen still hasn’t told me if he’s sent my recommendation letter yet.” Myka sounds irritable. “It needs to be there before the end of the month, and I know he can be scatterbrained, and I really, _really_ need his letter to go out in time.”

“Mr. Nielsen?” Helena has heard the name before, but only in passing; he’s one of the teachers, but not one of hers. 

“Teaches government and politics,” Myka explains. “He’s the one who gave me the idea to go into law. He… his recommendation means a lot.” Her voice trails off and her cheeks color again. 

“I see.” Helena does understand, even if the UK handles the application process differently. They’ve talked a lot about it in the last few weeks – not every Teen Avenger is applying for an Early Decision, but regardless of that, recommendation letters are a big topic. “Fingers crossed, then.”

“Thanks.” Myka finishes the sandwich and eyes the contents of the bag. “Mind if I have another?”

“Be my guest,” Helena says. She has no idea how much Leena has packed, but there is a café two stores down the street; if necessary she’ll just go and grab a bite there. 

“Thank you. Oh – hang on a moment. There’s a chair in the office; I’ll go and grab it for you,” Myka says, throwing her thumb towards the door, halfway off the register stool already. 

Helena puts her hand on Myka’s arm to stay her. “I’ll get it,” she says. “Just through the door?”

Myka nods and sinks back down with a grateful look. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Helena smiles. “Go on; feed your blood, Myk-Hulk.”

Myka gives an embarrassed giggle that trails Helena to the door. The office is packed with books – Helena assumes that these have yet to be catalogued, or maybe Myka’s father is the kind of book seller that has a hard time actually selling some of his treasure. The walls are covered in shelves, and there are literal stacks of books on the floor, hip-high and waiting for Helena to trip over them as she scoots the chair out from between them and through the door.

“Sorry for the chaos in there,” Myka calls over apologetically. “Dad doesn’t want me to handle those. I can’t tell you how often I’ve toppled those stacks before he cleared a larger pathway between the door and the bathroom at the back.”

Helena smiles as she imagines a younger, ganglier Myka navigate the chaos. “I managed not to knock over any of them, but it was a close thing.”

“Ballet lessons,” Myka grins back at her. 

The day progresses quietly; customers come in at a rate of about two or three per hour and Myka explains that Sundays usually are this low. “Still, though, I can’t leave the store unattended; that’s why I asked you to come. Thanks again.”

Again, Helena waves it away. “I get to be in a bookstore all day,” she reasons, “without having to buy anything or shoo away an attendant; I get to see where you grew up, _and_ I get to be with you all day. I should be thanking you.”

Myka blushes again and can’t keep her eyes on Helena. “Well,” she says and clears her throat, “if you put it that way…”

They’re alone and hidden from the door, so Helena feels confident enough to lean forward and not just kiss Myka’s cheek, but linger. “I do.”

The buzzer shoos them apart then, but still – it is a peaceful afternoon they’re spending together, even with the occasional interruption. Helena acquires the phone number of Myka’s gynecologist, and learns that Myka’s father named the store while Myka’s mother was pregnant, before he ever learned the sex, much less gender of his first child. She can see how much it still hurts Myka, even now, and quietly adds another black mark to the tally she keeps on Warren Bering. 

The store is open until six, Myka explains as the clock turns towards half past three, and adds that it’s rare for any customer to come by after four. “Dad can really only do this because he doesn’t have to pay me, like, an actual wage,” she says. “Last year he had to hire someone to fill in for me. The store hasn’t really recovered from it yet.” She looks down again, guilt written clearly across her face. 

“But that was so that you could concentrate on school, right?” Helena reminds her – they’ve talked about that, too. 

“Yeah,” Myka sighs. “Still.”

Helena is unsure what to respond to this. She’s gathered by now that Myka’s family isn’t well off, and she can’t really relate to how that feels – financial insecurity was never a problem for her, on the contrary. So she’s aware that she can’t know the extent of the guilt that might come with the kind of deal Myka struck with her dad, with seeing the repercussions of it lasting even months afterwards. She has no solution to offer, either – so she says nothing. 

The clock ticks on, and Myka’s inbox remains annoyingly devoid of a message from Mr. Nielsen. At a quarter past five, there’s a commotion at the back door that has Helena and Myka pull apart again – outside of interacting with customers, they are gravitating towards each other, and neither of them sees a reason to fight that, especially not on a day like today when they pretty much share the pack of Tylenol Helena has in her pocket. Human contact is comforting; it’s scientifically sound, there is no reason not to go with it.

“Rejoice, She-Hulk! We bring cupcakes!” Tracy announces as she barges through the door with a large plastic container in her arms. “Oh, hi H.G.” She cranes her head backwards and tells her mother, “Myka got the Brit to come.”

“Oh good.” Mrs. Bering sounds relieved, as though the info has taken a load off her shoulders she’s been carrying all day. She appears behind her younger daughter and nudges her forwards. “Tracy, no name-calling. Hi, Helena; so good of you to come.”

“Hello,” Helena says, feeling slightly embarrassed. “It wasn’t a problem.” 

“It was very kind of you,” Mrs. Bering insists. “Would you both like some cupcakes? Milk to go with them? Tea? Coffee?”

“I’d love to,” Helena says. “Tea, if you’re making it anyway? If everyone else is having milk or coffee, though, I’ll take either of that.”

Myka looks queasy. “I don’t think I can handle a cupcake right now, Mom, thanks.”

“Aww shoot, sucks for you,” Tracy says perfunctorily, then turns to Helena. “Which kind do you want? We got a choice of blueberry with hazelnut buttercream frosting, red velvet with cream cheese frosting, and chocolate with caramel frosting.”

Myka groans plaintively and buries her face in her hands. 

“We’ll save them for you for later, dear,” Jean says. 

“No promises,” Tracy warns. 

“Tracy Louise Bering, we have half a dozen of each; you _will_ save at least one of each kind for your sister.” Mrs. Bering’s tone is firm. 

“Fine,” Tracy sighs, then wiggles her container at Helena. “Well?”

Helena casts a glance at Myka, who gives her a resigned but encouraging nod. Helena nods back, then says, “I’ve never had red velvet anything before, so I’ll have one of those, please.”

“You haven’t?” Myka’s mother and sister intone in unison and with equally shocked expressions. 

Helena tries to hide a smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Wow,” Tracy says under her breath. 

“Well, have _you_ had spotted dick?” Helena can’t help but ask. Next to her, Myka snorts. 

“I’ve read Harry Potter, okay?” Tracy gives back, now a little sullen. “I know that’s a dessert.”

“Pudding,” Helena corrects, again unable to stop herself. 

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to,” Tracy says, but she’s grinning too. “Red velvet and a cuppa tea, coming right up.” And she turns past her mother out through the back door again.

“Myka, anything to drink at least?” Mrs. Bering asks solicitously. 

“Tea sounds good, actually, Mom,” Myka says, casting Helena a small smile. 

“Of course, sweetie. Helena, how do you take yours?”

“White, one sugar, please.”

“As my youngest said,” Mrs. Bering says, pointing to where Tracy just left, “coming right up. Again, thank you so much for coming by, dear. You’ll stay for dinner? It’s the least we can do.”

Helena blinks. She hadn’t thought about that. She looks at Myka, trying to gauge what Myka thinks of the idea, and sees a small nod. “I… would love to, if that’s alright with you,” she tells Myka’s mother. “I’ll just have to let Mrs. Frederic know.”

“Excellent. Any food sensitivities that I should know about?”

Helena shakes her head, then remembers, and adds with a sigh, “Excessive melted cheese, apparently. I had a very memorable run-in with delivery pizza last month.”

“Well, that won’t present a problem,” Mrs. Bering smiles. “We’re having slow cooker pulled pork tonight, with cornbread. The only cheese will be what you put on it yourself, so it’s literally in your hands.”

Helena smiles back at her – Jean Bering is easy to like, just like her daughter. Both daughters, actually, even if Helena has a very clear preference. “Thank you,” she says.

“You’re welcome, dear.”

The endearment – not just once, either, but twice – sits warmly in Helena’s chest even after Mrs. Bering leaves. 

Myka gives Helena a small smile that warms her further. “That went well,” she says quietly. 

Helena can’t help but agree, and smiles back at Myka. “It did, didn’t it.” She rolls her shoulders a little bit to loosen the tension they’ve developed during the conversation with Myka’s mother. “Sorry about the cupcakes, though.”

Myka waves it off. “It’s alright. I’m trying not to eat too much sugar this semester anyway; I’m training nowhere near as hard as I did last year, you know?”

Helena shrugs. “I’ve never really been the sporty type, so I’ll take your word for it.” It’s not as if, in her opinion anyway, Myka needs to worry. Like, at all. Her body, from what Helena can tell having seen her in regular clothes and football kits, is strong, athletic, beautiful. 

A few minutes later, Myka’s mother returns. “Cupcakes and tea are waiting for you upstairs, girls; go on, both of you, I’ll mind the store,” she says with a smile when Myka starts to protest. “You’ve earned it. Just come back in time to help me lock up, alright? And don’t let Tracy rope you into washing up, that’s her chore.”

“Thanks, Mom.” 

“Thank you, Mrs. Bering.”

“Oh, do call me Jean, Helena, please.”

Helena flushes; she can’t really wrap her head around the idea of calling Myka’s mother by her first name. She slips by the woman and resolves to try, but in her heart of hearts she knows that what will happen is that she’ll avoid any direct address whatsoever. 

Myka leads her up a flight of stairs and through a hallway with flowery wallpaper to a kitchen large enough to include a dining table. It’s cozy, with stains on the appliances that proclaim to the world that this is a place where people actually cook, not something picked from an upscale interior designer’s catalogue and then largely disregarded. There is a pile of dirty containers in the sink and on the countertop next to it that is currently being ignored, but Helena figures that’s Tracy’s chore and nothing to do with her, so she is happy to ignore it too. The plates and teacups on the table are not mismatched but differently colored, adding their own charm, as does the scent of at least halfway-decent tea. 

Helena inhales greedily; Myka having had as much of their lunch as she has means that Helena is _hungry._ She slides into the chair in front of the plate with the cupcake and waits impatiently for Myka to sit down too. “So what’s red velvet, anyway?” she asks, eyeing the confection. 

“A kind of chocolate batter, if I remember correctly.” Myka says, pulling out her chair and sitting on it with one leg folded underneath her. “Leena explained it, but that was ages ago. They used to use special cocoa to make it red somehow, but these days it’s just food coloring.”

“Uh-oh,” Helena says half-heartedly; at this point, _nothing,_ not even all the weird food additives in the world, will keep her from digging in. “Here’s to hoping I’ll keep it down, then,” she says and takes a bite. The cream cheese frosting has a surprisingly enjoyable tang to it. “This is good,” she concludes after swallowing.

“Glad you like it,” Myka says a bit sourly, sipping her tea. 

“Sorry.”

Myka’s lips twitch. “No you’re not.”

Helena smirks back at her. “Well. I am sorry for-” she waves her hand in the direction of Myka’s midriff, “your predicament. This, though…” she takes another bite and sighs with content.

“Drive it home, will ya?” 

Again, Myka sounds more amused than sour, so Helena smiles at her as she picks up the tea and tastes that, too. It’s not bad, considering. Not quite at Leena’s level of perfection, but then that surpasses most cuppas Helena’s had in England, so there’s that. She inhales again, savoring the scent, and takes another sip. 

“Adequate?” Myka asks, eyebrows raised and eyes twinkling.

“More than. Considerably.”

“Phew,” Myka grins. “I’ll let Mom know.” Then she shifts in her seat, eyeing the tower of washing up in the sink. “Tracy better get a start on that,” she grumbles.

“When we’re done, though,” Helena says firmly. “Not keen to sit through someone else washing dishes while I’m enjoying a considerably more than adequate cup of tea and a red velvet cupcake.”

Myka nods to that. “You do have a point.”

Helena smiles at her, happy as a cat. “I know.”

Myka grins back. “You really like being right, don’t you?”

“Who doesn’t? Honestly, darling.” Helena gives her a mock-patient look, fighting to keep her expression serious but unable to stop her mouth from quirking.

Myka laughs then, her eyes full of something that Helena doesn’t dare label but wishes to explore – but then the door bangs open and Tracy comes in, phone and portable speaker in hand with some pop song or other already blaring. 

“Don’t mind me, I’m just here to do the dishes,” she announces without even looking and turns on the faucet.

Myka’s knuckles slowly go from white back to normal around the teacup.

Helena wolfs down her cupcake in one large bite. “Show me your room?” she asks her girlfriend.

She’s sure there’s a chortle from Tracy, but it drowns in the music and the splashes from the filling sink and the eager scrape of Myka’s chair on the floor. 

A few moments later, the door to Myka’s room closes behind them, cutting off most of the sound coming from the kitchen. Helena takes another slow step forward and turns on the spot even more slowly, trying to take it all in. 

There are books. So many books. Everywhere. The room seems barely large enough to hold the three ceiling-high shelves, and though all the books’ spines show ample signs of use, the rows are neat and in good order. There’s a foot-high stack of paperbacks on the bedside table; another, taller one on the floor in front of it; two mixed stacks on the small desk. 

In front of the books stand a few figurines (including one She-Hulk); gifts from Pete and Steve, Helena knows. A large Wonder Woman poster on the robin’s egg blue wall behind the bed shows the Amazon Princess kneeling in front of a sunset with her sword propped in front of her. Next to it, a shelf is bursting with trophies for – Helena takes a closer look even though she’s reasonably sure – yes: fencing. A miniature X-Wing fighter and Romulan Warbird dangle from the ceiling on thin threads. The bed is covered by a simple comforter; the floor in front of it by a rag rug that has seen better days but seems perfect for digging one’s toes into it. 

“It’s pretty small, I guess,” Myka says from behind Helena, and when Helena turns, Myka’s hand is rubbing the back of her neck and Myka’s cheeks are flushed again. 

“It’s wonderful,” Helena says. For a moment, she’s jealous – the difference between her room at Mrs. Frederic’s house and this one could not be starker, regardless of the posters Helena has by now. Then her view shifts again, takes in Myka: in her room, in her element, just like up in the attic. “It suits you,” she adds, trying to be the bigger person. “I like it.”

Myka blush deepens, and she pushes her glasses up her nose. “Um, thanks?” She gives Helena a slightly disbelieving, slightly relieved grin. Then her face scrunches up again, and it spreads to Myka’s whole body. “Ugh. Ow.” Myka is holding herself up with one hand against the doorframe; Helena is sure the other girl wouldn’t be standing upright anymore without it.

“Cramp?” Helena asks, closing in and reaching for Myka’s other arm to support her. 

Myka groans out what’s probably a confirmation, and Helena pulls her towards the bed. With another groan, Myka sinks down. “Fuck,” she presses out from between clenched teeth. 

“Anything I can do?” It’s hard to see Myka in so much pain. Helena wants to help, _needs_ to help. “Another Tylenol?”

“Took one with my tea,” Myka presses out, hands cradling her abdomen. “Just have to wait until it kicks- ow…” She tilts sideways, propping herself up on one elbow, gritting her teeth until Helena hears them gnash.

“A hot water bottle, then? Anything? Myka?” 

“Could you-” Myka breaks off, takes a sharp breath in through her nose, releases it through pursed lips. Runs a hand across her brow, dislodges her glasses and places them on the bedside table, props her head into her palm again. “God… Helena, I swear I… I’m not coming on to you, okay?”

“What?!” Helena asks, genuinely confused. 

“This is something a massage therapist did for me once, during a fencing tournament, and it worked then, and- ugh.”

“Myka, just tell me!” At this point, Helena would do anything; there are tears in her eyes although she’s not sure if it’s sympathy pain or just her own helplessness.

“Can you massage my lower back?” The words come out in a rush.

“Yes!” Is that it? Is that _all?_ Of course Helena can – it’s not like a person’s lower back is that much of an erogenous zone. “Yes, of course I can.”

Myka’s reply is a piteous whine, and she drops her upper body to the bed. Her legs tilt sideways but don’t come off the floor – this can’t be comfortable, Helena thinks, but maybe Myka can’t muster up the energy to kick off her shoes or move her feet up to the bed. 

So that’s where Helena starts, then, taking hold of Myka’s ankles to remove her shoes, tugging the girl’s legs up until Myka finds a bit of strength and pulls her knees up to her chest.

“Try not to tense up so much,” Helena says; advice she’s gotten from one gynecologist before the next one had put her on the pill. “Try to stretch out a bit more, breathe into your belly. I know it seems counterintuitive, but try, please,” she coaxes.

Instead, Myka just rolls over, laboriously, until she’s curled towards the wall and her back faces Helena. Her hoodie and t-shirt have ridden up a little, and Helena swallows at the little sliver of skin she sees. Not that much of an erogenous zone indeed. She gulps again. This is not the time, she admonishes herself. You wanted to help, this is how you can help; get over yourself, for god’s sake. 

She tugs the t-shirt down and pushes it into the top of Myka’s pants, then gingerly pokes her finger into a random spot on Myka’s lower back.

Myka groans again. “Yes,” she mumbles into the crook of her arm. “Thank you.”

Again, Helena tells herself not to interpret Myka’s utterances the way her libido wants to. Myka needs pain relief. That is all. She ignores the little voice that reminds her that that self-same gynecologist said that sometimes orgasms helped with period pain – this is _not_ what Myka wants, this is _not_ what the situation warrants, and she doesn’t even know if it’s true. Myka seems to be in pain that’s more excruciating than what Helena has felt before she went on the pill; it’s worrisome more than anything. “How… how do I do this?”

“Just dig,” Myka says indistinctly. Her face is still buried in her arms. “Poke. Whatever. The therapist used her elbow. She said to imagine kneading dough.”

“With her elbow?” Helena asks skeptically, poking Myka’s back with a bit more force. As a result, Myka hisses, and Helena stops. “Bad?”

“No,” Myka says immediately, “good. Please, like that. Ugh.”

Helena tries to heed the ‘kneading dough’ advice – not that she’s ever done that in her life, but she’s seen it; not just on TV, but in person weekend before last, when Leena made ciabatta. The t-shirt rides up again and she frowns and tries to tug it back. She does not want to touch Myka’s skin; things are already a little weird and there’s no way that the resulting awkwardness would help matters. She tilts her head, contemplating matters before her. “This might be a bit easier if you were lying on your stomach. Can you do that or would it be too painful?”

Myka lies still for a moment, then shuffles to unfold herself. A few groans and hisses later she’s lying flat on her front. Helena sits down next to her, tugs the t-shirt down again and sets to work, and the groans and hisses resume but Myka is quick to reassure Helena that she’s helping rather than making things worse, so Helena shrugs away her worry and concern and soldiers on. 

And then Myka twists to the side and bends almost double, and with the motion comes a familiar, if previously unheard noise, and Myka freezes. “Oh god.”

Helena freezes too, mortified on Myka’s behalf. 

Because that, unmistakably, was a fart. 

“Shit.” Slowly, ever so slowly, Myka grabs her pillow and pulls it over her head. “God, please, can the Earth just please open up and swallow me?”

Helena can’t help herself – she giggles. Not that she’s any less second-hand-embarrassed than she was a moment ago, but Myka feeling this sorry for herself? That’s new, startlingly so.

“Now she’s laughing at me,” Myka grumbles. “Amazing. Awesome. Can we please not?”

“I’m sorry,” Helena says, immediately remorseful. She puts her hand back on the small of Myka’s back. “I truly am sorry. Listen, though, you’re on your period. It’s just what happens, right?” She’s gassy too, when it’s her time. Something occurs to her. “Hey, maybe the gas is what gave you cramps. Maybe it’ll get better now.”

Myka is silent for a few moments; her back is tense underneath Helena’s fingers. “Can we just-” Another fart sneaks out, and Myka whimpers.

Helena doesn’t know if it’s embarrassment or pain – lord knows she’s had painful gas during periods before, and lord knows even more how much better it feels when they’re out. “Better out than in,” she says therefore, forcing bravado into her voice she didn’t know she could muster in a situation like this. 

Myka just groans underneath her pillow. 

And yes, alright, the smell is pretty bad, but Helena would rather face down Mrs. Frederic than tell Myka that. Better out than in, she tells herself too, and takes her breaths a bit shallower than usual.

For Myka? It’s the least she can do.

Well, that, and rub reassuring circles on the small of Myka’s back, and utterly ignore any further… emanations. 

After a while, Myka raises a hand, and Helena stops. With a few more grumbles, Myka gets out from under her pillow and pulls her knees underneath her, shaping herself into a parcel and arching her back to stretch out her muscles, ending in a bone-deep groan that makes Helena swallow again. Then she sits up and turns around to face Helena, who has settled on the desk chair. “Thanks,” she says, cheeks aflame again and hair unruly. “And… and sorry.”

“Did it help?”

Myka blinks, then grimaces and hangs her head. “Oh god… It… Yeah? I think?” 

“That’s all that matters,” Helena replies resolutely. “Listen, how about just… ignoring it ever happened?”

“God yes please. I, uh… I’d appreciate that.” Myka’s smile is lopsided, quick to come and just as quick to dissipate as her hands run over her hair and realize how much of it has slipped out of her bun. “Ugh.” She is impatient, almost angry as she tugs the hair tie out, and winces as her fingers catch on a snag.

“Let me?” Helena says on impulse. 

Myka freezes, elbows high and hairband pinched between her lips. Something too fast to be readable flickers across her face, then she nods and turns around to sit on the bed lotus-style with her back to Helena. Helena gets up and stands behind her for better access, then takes the hair tie that Myka holds up for her. “Just make sure it’s out of my face?” Myka asks. “I don’t need anything tickling me on top of everything else.”

“Righty-ho,” Helena replies, slipping the hair tie onto her wrist.

Myka sighs when Helena’s hands get busy gathering her hair and relaxes her upper body into Helena’s. Her head bumps slightly into Helena’s stomach. “Oh! Sorry.”

“Oh, nonsense.” Helena barely noticed it, so intent is she to find every last errant curl, to not tug at Myka’s hair in the process. “How’s this?” She’s holding back the upper half of Myka’s hair, down to behind her ears. “Would this work?”

“I’ve never worn my hair like that before,” Myka says. 

“I know,” Helena replies with a smile. “That’s why I wanted to see what it looks like when you do.” 

Myka is silent for a moment; Helena envisions her biting her lip – Myka does that quite often when she’s pondering something. Then Myka’s shoulders shrug against her hips. “Sure, why not?”

Helena slips the hair tie off her wrist and around the curls she’s gathered, binding them into a small bun. She wishes she could manage a more orderly one than this, but Myka’s curls truly are stubborn and this is the best she can do without a comb or bobby pins. “It’s a bit rustic, I’m afraid,” she says when she’s done. 

Myka shrugs again. “It’ll be fine. Seriously, today? Don’t care.” Her head slumps into Helena’s midriff again, and without a thought, Helena’s hand comes up to cradle it as her other hand lands on Myka’s shoulder. Myka sighs, and Helena can feel her relax. 

Then the door bursts open.


	18. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will go up on Oct 31st!

“Myka, I said to co- what on Earth?!”

“Mom!” Myka shoots off the bed to put herself between Helena and her mother, who stands in the doorway as if struck by lightning. “Knock?!” Another jab of pain stabs through her intestines, but she does her best to ignore it; this is not the time to double over; this is the time to show Helena that Myka meant it when she said she’d always stand with her. Or in front of her, as the case might be.

Jean gapes at her a moment longer before snapping her mouth shut and shaking her head. “Yes, of course, I’m sorry, but…” She swallows. “Myka, I… you…” She swallows again and clears her throat. “I, uh… I better go close up the store.” And she’s gone again. 

Myka stares after her, then, teeth grinding as she finally, grudgingly acknowledges the pain, turns around to Helena, who hasn’t said a word – and now, even without her glasses on, Myka can see why. 

Helena is white as a sheet, her jaw slack, her pupils wide. She stands frozen in a half-crouch, as if she’s either waiting for a blow to fall or for an opening to appear through which she can escape. 

“Helena?” Myka has no idea what to do; the way Helena looks right now worries her. “Hey?”

If Helena hears her, she gives no sign of it. Her eyes are riveted to the door. 

“Helena,” Myka tries again, this time reaching out towards the other girl. When her fingers make contact with Helena’s upper arm, Helena’s whole body flinches and she yelps. “Hey,” Myka says, in her best calm voice. “Hey, it’s alright.” 

Helena still isn’t looking at her; she’s still staring at the door. Her mouth is trembling – when Myka’s fingers curl around her arm, Myka can feel that her body is shaking too. 

“Helena, it’s okay,” she implores. “It’s just my mom. It’ll be alright.” Truth is, she isn’t one hundred percent sure herself, but doesn’t she have to say this, for Helena? Isn’t this what Helena needs to hear? “Hey, come on. It’s fine.”

Helena shudders, but at least her eyes focus on Myka now. “It’s not,” she says hoarsely. “This is…” she breaks off, and her face contorts for a moment. Then it slackens again, and she runs a hand across her brow and down her cheek, and suddenly she looks more tired than Myka has ever seen her, to the point where she sways where she stands. 

“Whoa,” Myka says, stepping close and catching Helena’s other arm. Helena sinks against her with another shudder, and Myka’s arms close around her shoulders like they’ve done a thousand times before. “I’ve got you,” she murmurs into Helena’s hair, wondering why Helena is reacting so strongly. “Hey,” she says, more firmly this time. “I won’t leave you hanging, okay? No matter if it turns out fine or not, I’m not gonna let you down.”

Helena mumbles something into Myka’s shoulder. 

“What’s that?”

“She is your mother, Myka,” Helena says, turning her head away from Myka’s shoulder to speak. “You might have no choice.” She sounds incredibly resigned. 

“Hey.” Myka draws back, grabs Helena’s shoulders, makes Helena look at her. “I know it turned out bad for you last time, but this won’t, okay? I pro-” There’s a knock on the door. Myka grits her teeth. “Yes?” she calls out.

“Can I see you both in the living room, please?” It’s Jean’s voice that carries through the unopened door, crisp and only minimally hesitant. And it’s not a request.

“Give us a minute,” Myka replies even as she hears her mother’s steps recede down the hallway. She squeezes Helena’s shoulders one last time before letting go to find her glasses.

Helena sighs. “Do you have a mirror in here somewhere?”

“A mirror?” Myka asks, startled, fingers slowly sinking down from her face. “What do you need a mirror for?”

“To make sure I’m presentable.” Helena’s words are clipped, and her face is shuttered more closely than Myka has ever seen it. 

“You look perfect,” she says, despite Helena’s persistent paleness. 

Helena snorts a soft, hollow laugh. “Thanks for the pep talk,” she says, then nods her chin towards the door. “Let’s go then.”

Myka very purposely holds out her hand. 

Helena regards it for a moment, eyebrow raised, and Myka reaches out an inch further in challenge, daring Helena not to take her up on her offer. Helena sets her jaw, inhales deeply, and grips Myka’s hand.

She is still trembling; subdued now, held in check as tightly as Helena can manage, Myka is sure, but still noticeable when you have a hold of her fingers. 

Tracy’s music is still audible from the kitchen, as are the sounds of Tupperware being washed in the sink. Jean sits in one of the chairs, and nods her chin towards the couch when Myka and Helena come in. They sink down side by side, and Myka defiantly keeps hold of Helena’s hand. 

It’s clammy, and she’s felt Helena’s fingers try to twitch away more than once on their way here, but Myka would rather cut her own hand off than let go.

Jean’s eyes fall on their intertwined fingers and she sighs. “Explain, please?” She sounds stoic more than anything else. 

“Helena’s my girlfriend, Mom.” These four words have been pulsing in Myka’s head and they come out now, awkward and artless and straight from the heart. She tries to find more words, about how sudden it was, how it surprised her, how it makes her feel like she’s flying, but in the face of her mother’s stare, none of them will come. 

Jean sighs again. “I… alright. Okay.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, under her glasses. “Does this have anything to do with Tracy?”

Myka splutters. “What? No! No, Mom. I didn’t even know Tracy was…” what does Tracy identify as? To Myka’s knowledge, she’s never said outright which term she prefers. “With Shaw,” she ends her sentence. 

“So I take it that…” Jean stops, weighs her words, shakes her head, smiles gamely, “you did find someone after all, then?”

“Mom…” Myka all but whines. She’s sure her mother knows how much Myka dislikes that particular phrasing.

“Sorry,” Jean says with an apologetic gesture. “Sorry. I’m… I’m trying to wrap my head around this. It’s not… not what I expected. And that’s not a bad thing,” she adds quickly, with another one of those smiles. “Not a bad thing,” she repeats, as if she’s reassuring herself. “Just unexpected. I mean who’d have thought that both-” she stops herself and shakes her head again. “No matter.” Then she sits in silence for a while, eyes moving here and there, clearly lost in thought. A deep breath, and she’s looking up at Myka, eyes piercing. “Are you happy?”

 _”Yes,_ Mom.” Myka puts all her conviction into it, and it seems to satisfy Jean. She nods, then looks at Helena – who, Myka sees, blanches and gulps. 

“Are you-” again, Jean breaks off, and this time she sighs. “I know so little about you, Helena. I want my daughter to be happy, and I’m glad she tells me she is.” Her eyes flick to Myka’s for a short moment, a brief, true smile, then return to Helena again. Her lips twitch into a short purse before she catches herself. “Is there anything I _should_ know about you?”

“Mom, she-”

Jean holds up her hand, and Myka falls silent. She can see the muscles work in Helena’s face, can feel the tension in her white-knuckled grip on Myka’s hand. 

If Myka could do anything to protect Helena from this, she would. Christ, Helena just went through a barrage of… Myka’s intestinal problems, and didn’t flinch, and now she’s being roasted by Myka’s mom; it’s not fair. And it’s not fair that Myka can only sit here and hold her hand and try to… _project,_ or something, her support. She hopes Helena can feel it, at least. 

“My parents don’t approve,” Helena says at last, and it seems she needs to force open her jaws to form the words. “Of me being… anything but straight.”

“So they know?”

Helena nods mutely. 

“Do they know of you and Myka?”

Helena shakes her head. 

“Does anyone else know about you two?”

“Tracy and Shaw,” Myka says, “and the rest of the soccer team. And the gang. Since yesterday. Oh, and Jane.” 

Jean sighs again. “Alright. Any… any bad reactions? Any bullying?”

“What? No!” 

“Well that’s something, at least,” Jean mutters, more to herself. Then she focuses on them again. “Look, girls, I… I’m trying to keep up, alright? When Tracy… told us, I… I read up on things. How parents can… can support their children. And, Myka, I…” she leans forwards and holds out her hand. 

Myka stares at it for a moment, then starts and puts her free hand into it. Her mom squeezes tightly, but very differently from Helena on Myka’s other hand. 

“I trust you,” Jean says, and her voice is firm even though her eyes, again, look a bit more as though she’s convincing herself more than she’s telling her daughter. “You… you’ve made good decisions for yourself so far, so I’m going to… trust that this is one, too, okay?” She takes a deep breath, and glances at Helena, and Myka suddenly realizes what her mother is implying: Jean does not know Helena. Not the way she knows Sameen Shaw, who’s been Tracy’s friend and in and out of the Bering household since Tracy’s freshman year. Helena hasn’t exactly been forthcoming at Jean’s questions, so what Jean is doing, right now, stated outright, is telling Myka that she trusts Myka’s judgement. 

It should be a moment of crowning glory, right? A moment of adulthood, of winning her parents’ – well, _one_ parent’s – trust. And yet all Myka can feel is queasy. She gulps. “Okay.” It comes out as a croak, and she clears her throat. “Thanks, Mom.” She tries to breathe into her stomach, but she really doesn’t have enough mental capacity to focus on it for long.

Her mother takes another deep breath, and it’s shaky, as is her smile – but the smile encompasses both of them, Myka and Helena. “Alright,” she says breezily, looks at the clock on the wall, and stems herself from her chair. “Time to make the cornbread, I suppose. Oh, and-” she says, as if she’s forgotten some minor announcement, “I won’t, um, out you. Yes? To your father. I’ve read that it’s not done. So I won’t. And if you two need anything I can help with, let me know, okay?”

Myka stares at her. Then she rushes up from the couch and wraps her arms around her mom. They’re both shaking. Jean returns the hug fiercely, as if it’s the last hug she’ll ever give Myka, and Myka clings to her for quite a bit longer than usual because of it. Things feel at once more solid and way more shaken up than they ever have been, and Jean’s hug is an anchor, a mother’s arms, so familiar – but Jean is also shaking, and anchors shouldn’t be shaking. But parents _can_ be shaken when their kids do unexpected things like this; parents are… 

Parents are only human.

And with that thought, Myka knows that her childhood is truly over. She might not be a full-blown adult yet, but she very firmly knows that she will never see her mom the same way again, and that is most definitely a milestone. She tightens her arms – does her mom know it too? Can she feel it? “It’s okay, Mom,” she mumbles, awkward and artless and reassuring herself a bit more than she does her mom, maybe. 

But Jean gives a watery, shaky laugh and pulls away – and then her face softens, sobers, when her gaze falls on something off to Myka’s side. “Oh, sweetheart,” she whispers, lets fully go of Myka, and sinks down onto the couch next to Helena – whose face is wet and whose eyes are dark with longing. And if there’s a faster way into Jean Bering’s heart than being someone in need of loving, Myka doesn’t know it; Jean reaches out as if to hug Helena but stops herself at the last moment and clears her throat. “Would it be alright if I hugged you?” she asks, slow and low and cautious, very much like someone to whom this kind of question was taught only recently.

And Helena pulls herself together so fast, so painfully, so _visibly,_ that Myka can see the moment when Jean understands, when her mother’s eyes grow bottomless for a moment, when Jean sits back, slow and cautious, and pats Helena’s forearm instead, one-two-three, and gets up. “Well,” Jean Bering says. “Alrighty, then. Still, remember, Helena: the offer goes for you too, alright? Whenever you need something. Now, the cornbread.”

-_-_-

Myka’s dad isn’t back for dinner; small mercies, Myka thinks, and feels like giving thanks as she breaks her cornbread muffin in two. She does hope that it means that he’s having a successful haul at the estate sales he’s been to today, but her mom’s poker face is too good to give anything away. 

The mood around the table when they all sit down is a bit weird, to the point where Tracy looks from face to face in confusion, but it settles somewhat as they all eat. Helena puts only a very small portion onto her plate, but her eyes grow round with appreciation as she has her first taste of cornbread, coleslaw and pulled pork – all on one fork, just like she said that day in the attic, and strictly no cheese – and she soon takes seconds. Seeing her dig in reassures Myka; she feels muscles relax in her back and shoulders that she hasn’t been aware she’s been tensing. Helena doesn’t say much, but she does compliment the food sincerely, and Jean’s answering smile is just as genuine. All three girls stay behind to help Jean with the dishes until Tracy almost knocks a plate out of Helena’s hands as she turns and Jean shoos them all away, claiming the kitchen is too small. And then Myka is alone with Helena in her room again, and Helena stands just inside the door, worrying her hands as though she’s afraid she’ll be sent home any instant now. 

Myka sits down at the top of the bed, close to her pillow, and pats the spot next to her in invitation. Helena lingers at the door a moment longer, then sets her jaw and walks over, sinking down on the corner of the opposite end of the bed. 

Myka almost smiles, but she remembers how small Helena was on the couch, staring up at Myka hugging her mom, then shying away from a mom hug of her very own. Helena is jumpy, and Myka can’t blame her. She shifts, turns to face Helena more fully, settles with one ankle hooked under the other knee and her hands holding on to her shin. “That went well,” she says, lightly, as if she’d expected it to.

The smile Helena gives her in return is barely more than a grimace. “Seems so.”

Myka nods firmly. “Trust me.” Then she tilts her head. “How’s your tummy?” She’s feeling okay now, but Helena might not be; part of how tensely the other girl holds herself might stem from that. 

“Least of my worries,” Helena says with another grimace-smile twitch. 

“Relax your abs?” Myka suggests. “Breathe into your belly?”

Helena gives a hollow laugh, but she does kick off her shoes now and scrambles up onto the bed until she’s leaning against the wall with her knees pulled up like a shield against the world.

Myka quickly mirrors her, sitting close enough next to Helena that their sides are touching. Again she can feel the tension in Helena’s body. Again she can see how white Helena’s knuckles are, fingers strangling fingers on top of knees. Myka has an idea, then, an instinct, an inspiration, and quickly tells Helena, “I’ll be right back, okay?”, loath to leave her again so soon, but halfway confident that this might help. She’s back a moment later, phone in her hand, and thrusts it at Helena, unlocked and with a music streaming app open. “Here. Let’s listen to something, yeah?” It’s not a piano, but at least it’ll be music. She only hopes it’ll be enough.

Helena stares at the phone, then up at Myka as though Myka is some kind of celestial being. Then she takes the phone, slowly, gingerly, taps in a few search terms, selects an entry, taps play, sits back and closes her eyes. 

The music that comes out is… classical, of course, but… dark. Threatening. Taking Myka’s breath away, and not in a good way, like a horror movie soundtrack but also not, like despair and unstoppable, unavoidable destruction. “What _is_ this?” she whispers. 

“Catharsis,” Helena whispers back. “I need this. Please.”

“Okay.” Myka falls silent. The music grows ever more… violent. Myka doesn’t have a better word to describe it. Her gaze falls onto the screen, seeks out the title of the song, sees ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’, and understands a little bit better – so this piece emulates war, then. And yeah, it fits. The beat is… off, odd, confusing, hypnotic; she counts – five fours. _Five._ She’s never heard of a song in that time before; its oddness puts her further ill at ease. The strings are swelling and roiling, a snare drum is rattling in the background, and she thinks of the poster she’s leaning against, of Wonder Woman, of No Man’s Land and poison gas and machine guns and devastation, and wonders if this piece was written with that war in mind. Next to her, Helena curls in on herself tighter and tighter as the music builds to a crescendo that is so loud, so dissonant, that Myka expects a knock on her door any minute now – and the piece isn’t even over yet. It seems like torture, and Helena’s body is almost contorted by now, eyes screwed shut, fingers clamped around each other in a twitching stranglehold. But her breath is even. No, not precisely: it comes in time with the music’s ups and downs, and her head weaves and sways minutely with the music’s motions – she said she needed this, Myka reminds herself. And maybe… maybe it’s easier to have music build emotions in you, rather than feel your own? 

The piece is building up again, the strings cry out in despair and get pounded on by the big kettle drums, a gong swells, the music splinters and comes together in two large, climactic beats, then three more, another three, four, inexorable and ever-mounting, and just when Myka wonders what on Earth could be coming next it pauses, as if inhaling for one last final blow to end all life on earth or something. And then the blow falls, twice, twice more, as if the God of War isn’t satisfied with one final, clean blow, as if he’s berserk, going on long after he’s beaten his opponent to a pulp, and _then_ there’s the final chord, long and drawn out and tasting like blood with all the brass blaring in it.

“Christ,” Myka mutters; she can’t help herself. Next to her, she can feel Helena’s breath come fast and shallow. 

“Again,” Helena presses out, without even opening her eyes.

“What?!”

_“Please.”_

Myka fumbles with her phone, finds the proper keys to push to make Mars march again – how can you march to _five_ beats, though? You can’t help but stumble, and maybe that’s the point. The piece is incredibly effective, and she switches between listening to it and observing Helena listening to it. 

Helena’s facial expressions move in time with the music’s ups and downs. Myka has seen this in videos and photos of people playing classical music and always thought it a bit pretentious, but she feels that now she understands, as she sees Helena throw herself into the vicarious agony of this piece to drown whatever emotions she doesn’t want to deal with in her own mind. It’s escapism, just like reading, isn’t it? 

The first crescendo rises and dissolves into dissonance and war drums, and Myka can see the hairs rise on Helena’s arms. She holds her breath. Helena’s face is wild with borrowed ferocity and Myka wonders what her eyes would look like if they were open, and marvels that Helena keeps them close even though Myka is with her; this feels like an incredibly private thing to watch. The large crescendo washes over Helena’s expression like a silent scream, and this time when the last agonizing beats fall Helena’s body shakes with them, as if she’s flinging herself against something invisible.

This time, she doesn’t ask Myka to repeat the song, and the next one is so much milder, so kind and gentle, Myka feels like she has an idea of which name she’ll see attached to it even before she checks.

Venus, Bringer of Peace. 

Helena’s breaths are deeper now, deeper and trembling, and her head lolls back as this music rises in a different way, uplifting and tender, all strings and flutes and chords that feel like caresses. A single violin sings out, a woodwind answers, and Helena swallows, and a tear drops from the corner of one still-closed eye. And when the rest of the strings set in again in a sweeping motif, Helena whispers, in perfect time, “Myka, Myka, Myka, can you hear me?” as if these are the _lyrics_ to this piece. The strings swell and Myka rushes forward and wraps her arms around Helena, and Helena clings to her and they sway in time to this song, to notes that cradle them, that seem to answer Helena’s question with words that Myka can’t find, words that she would love to put to music if that was a talent she possessed, words like “I’ll always hear you, I’ll always be there, I’ll always hold you catch you keep you love you.” There are some bits in there that sound like the melody is sighing ‘Helena’, to her ears. Right after one of them, the can-you-hear-me bit appears again, coming from a single string instrument, but this time Helena stays silent, and then the music swings into an even simpler beat, one two three four, I can hear you, I can hear you, always always, always always, I do, I do, I do, I do, and fades away.

“Again,” Helena whispers against Myka’s shoulder, and this time Myka doesn’t question, barely detaches her arms long enough to operate her phone. Venus envelops them again, swaying them in her soothing melody, and Helena shakes with tears in Myka’s arms, and it doesn’t matter if they’re her feelings or from the music, all that matters is that Myka _can_ hear her, _does_ hear her, and will always, always reply. 

This time, when the song fades away, Helena finds the phone and closes the app, and then sinks back into Myka’s arms, tears stopped as surely as the music. Her breathing is looser now, as are her shoulders, so whatever this was, it seems to have helped. Catharsis indeed. She leans against Myka for a few moments longer, then pulls away to blow her nose. 

“You probably think that was weird,” she says when she’s done, not quite looking at Myka.

Myka shakes her head anyway. “No,” she says, “I don’t. I really don’t.”

“It’s just that-” Helena goes on, as if she hasn’t heard Myka. She sighs. “It’s hard to describe.”

“The music makes you feel things so you don’t have to feel your own stuff?” Myka ventures. At this, Helena’s eyes fly up to meet hers, and she looks so baffled that Myka laughs. “Isn’t that it?”

“Well, yes,” Helena splutters, “but…” Then she laughs, too, and shakes her head, and sinks into Myka again. “I should have known you’d understand.”

Myka hums her agreement to that and wraps her arms around Helena’s shoulders. Helena’s weight is fully on her now, and Myka shuffles a bit until she is leaning against the wall again and Helena is sitting sideways between her legs, knees propped over Myka’s left leg, and Myka’s right leg pulled up behind Helena’s back. “I will always hear you,” Myka says then, because she has to. Because that song, and Helena’s whispered question, and the way Helena was crying are still playing in her mind. “I will always hear you, okay? Always.”

Helena has tensed at the first sentence, and softened again at its repetition, and now she presses her head into the crook of Myka’s neck, and Myka can feel fresh tears on her skin. Then she sniffs, and sniffs again, and says, “It’s silly, really.”

Myka shakes her head. “I don’t think so. I really don’t,” and only belatedly realizes that she’s basically echoing what she said just moments ago. Again, she wonders if she shouldn’t say something else, something more, and again she has no idea how; how to put into words all that’s swirling around in her mind as she holds Helena in her arms. And so she just tightens her arms a little bit more, presses a kiss on Helena’s cheek, and keeps holding her. 

She can feel Helena relaxing further, and the knowledge that Helena trusts her this much, that she, Myka Bering, is making this happen – oh, she could sing with it. Her heart soars just like the music did a moment ago. Venus isn’t just the Bringer of Peace, isn’t she; and the other thing that Venus is known for rises and spreads through Myka till she thinks that by rights it should be bursting forth from her fingertips like it does for Captain Marvel, only… only gentler. 

This is love. 

And her mother is okay with it, and Tracy is okay with it; Pete and his mom are okay with it; their friends are okay with it, the soccer team is okay with it – in this moment, Myka barely cares what her dad might say or not, what with everyone else being okay with it. It doesn’t matter anyway, at least not for tonight; he won’t be back until after midnight, and she’s gonna take Helena home by ten, so: no matter. 

It’s barely eight now; they have two more hours to spend with each other in a home that, as things stand right now, is accepting and welcoming. 

Myka doesn’t think she’s ever felt this happy.

Then Helena sniffles again, and reaches for her tissue to blow her nose, and Myka sobers up. Helena is most certainly not happy. And then Helena sits up straight and says, “Maybe we should spend some time with your mother.”

Myka blinks. “Say what?”

“So that she can get to know me better.” Helena’s gaze drops. “It’s understandable.”

“Do you… actually _want_ that?”

Helena shrugs. Then she smiles the tiniest little smile. “As long as I get to repair my make-up first.”

Myka stares at her. “You’re serious.”

“Mostly,” Helena admits. “Bit terrified as well.” She raises the hand that still holds the balled-up tissue, and shows Myka a tiny amount of space between thumb and forefinger. Then she turns to take in the rest of the room, craning her neck until she sees the trashcan under Myka’s desk, and tosses the tissue towards it. It misses by at least a foot. “Oh, bollocks.”

Myka laughs. “That was a bad one, yeah.”

“We can’t all have your hand-eye coordination,” Helena sniffs primly. Then she gets up and deposits the tissue in the trashcan, with all the decorum of a queen. “Well?” she says then, turning back to Myka. “Shall we? Or rather, will you show me the bathroom?”

Helena quickly tosses out the idea of repairing her make-up; Myka’s foundation is totally the wrong color to blend in with Helena’s skin. Helena ends up taking all of it off, mascara, eyeshadow and all. Myka does the same – not just to show solidarity, but because that’s what she usually does when she comes home; she’s not the biggest fan of make-up in the first place. But here, tonight, with Helena looking as shy and trepidant as she does with her face bare and slightly shiny from Myka’s moisturizer, no power in the world could persuade Myka to keep her own face made up. 

Helena studies Myka while Myka applies moisturizer, and then says, “Your eyes are still green.”

She sounds surprised, and Myka can’t help but shake her head and chuckle. “Um, yeah? What else would they be?”

“I was wondering,” Helena says, and her gaze is disconcerting in its directness. “If the make-up you wear influenced their color at all. I wonder if a stronger color might.”

Color is rising in Myka’s cheeks now. “I don’t know, maybe? I don’t… I’m not too big on make-up. I just do it because everyone does it. Took me ages to get right, even longer not to feel like an impostor.”

At that, Helena’s eyes actually focus on Myka’s gaze again instead of on her irises. “I know what you mean,” she says with a sigh. “Sometimes it’s like it’s a mask that people expect you to wear, isn’t it?” She hums a few notes, then sings, _“Inside my heart is breaking, my make-up may be flaking but my smile still stays on.”_

Her voice is rough, and Myka remembers her talking about not being a great singer. But she does hit the notes right, and her voice, still raw from crying, fits the song and its emotion, and Myka blinks, and the moment is gone. 

Helena turns, and when she looks back at Myka and smiles, that’s her other-people smile, the one Myka knows from the classroom and the library, as much a mask as the make-up she washed off.

Myka’s expression must have shown it; for a moment, Helena’s smile softens and turns wistful, and that’s her private smile, the one that’s true. Then Helena takes a breath as if to steel herself, and Myka nods at her, and they leave the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music in this chapter: Gustav Holst’s Planets’ Suite, first [Mars,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXOanvv4plU) then [Venus,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp5gksq_OEI) and lastly Queen’s [The Show Must Go On](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99KH0TR-J4)


	19. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! Have two chapters today, and one tomorrow!

  
Helena feels tired this Monday morning too, still crampy, still spotting, and – and that is small wonder after the rollercoaster that this weekend has been – antsy.

Yes, the Teen Avengers seemed to have been okay with Myka and her during movie night, but how will things go in school? And, yes, Mrs. Bering was downright amiable while they talked and played board games yesterday night, but will that last?

And how is Myka’s father going to take things, once he finds out? Yes, Mrs. Bering has said she won’t out them, not to him nor anyone else, but-

Helena releases a harsh breath. 

She wants to trust Myka’s mother, she really does, especially after the trust Mrs. Bering has afforded Helena yesterday, but…

She’s queasy on the way to school, queasy all through lessons, lunch, and lessons again. It’s only when she sits down in the bleachers next to the football pitch that her anxiety lessens somewhat. She’s among ‘her own people’, as Tracy calls it, and funnily enough, that seems to actually work to reassure Helena. 

Tracy knows about Mrs. Bering knowing; she tells Helena so in the second or two they have to themselves before Ben and Olivia join them. Helena tries to breathe deeply for the next minute or so, and that kind of works, too. 

What helps most, though, is watching Myka learn a sport that, eight weeks into the school year, is still new to her. Myka is determined, and she knows how to create muscle memory, but, Helena thinks as she watches the team play six against six again, she doesn’t understand the gameplay yet, not really, the way players rely on each other to fill their assigned roles to win the game. It makes sense; fencing is a solitary sport, each player on their own. Football very much isn’t. After half an hour Shaw calls for a break, and when they all sit around in the bleachers and discuss strategy, Helena can hear that Shaw understands this, that most of the more experienced players understand it, but that Myka and this year’s other newcomers haven’t really grasped it yet. 

She wonders if any of the newbies plays chess, if any of them have played a team sport before. 

She also wonders how she would bring that point across – she’s no coach; the football team doesn’t have a coach per se, just a sponsor in Mr. Farnsworth, Astrid’s dad. Shaw is the closest they have to the role, and Shaw also struggles to put into words what she means. Still, though, everyone is willing, and on the pitch, they do the best they can to follow Shaw’s instructions. 

What’s also interesting is that this team doesn’t play to compete, when Helena always thought – and the wrestling meet did little to dissuade her – that competition was central, vital, indispensable to any form of American interaction, sports or otherwise. No, this team plays to enjoy the game, to enjoy throwing their bodies into tackles and sprints, and it’s refreshing even just to witness it as a spectator. 

When she mentions this to the rest of the WAGs, Tracy nods fervently. “Seriously, it’s one of the reasons I suggested it to Myka last year.”

 _“You_ did?”

Tracy nods again. “She was so focused on studying and polishing up everything for her application she forgot to freaking _live._ If she’d continued with fencing, she’d have had zero free time, I swear.” She points to where Myka, having just collided with one of the other players, is now hanging off that player’s arm laughing her head off, and adds, “That? Would _never_ have happened last year. Any kind of mistake and she’d fly off the handle.” Tracy’s gesture is very evocative. “I mean even _this_ I had to give her good reasons for, like, improving her team working skills – and frankly they can stand it – but, really, I was getting a bit concerned for a while there.”

One of the two teams scores a goal and cheers, and Shaw – who’s on the other team – calls out “great technique on that shot!” 

Ben whoops in approval, so it was probably Jasmine who scored. Then Ben turns back to the WAGs. “Myka Bering is a legend,” they say. “Even _I’ve_ heard how hard she works at everything, and I’m just a sophomore.”

Tracy blows a raspberry. “I assure you, Myka Bering burps and farts like everyone else.” Olivia roars with laughter, Ben looks slightly ill, and Helena blushes, remembering last night. And Tracy notices, and digs her elbow into Helena’s side. “Am I right or am I right?”

“I’ll refrain from commenting on that, thank you very much,” Helena replies, taking refuge in sheer Britishness to elicit more laughter. 

“Seriously, Ben,” Tracy says, “she’s too much. Or used to be, anyway. And I tell you, I’m glad she’s mellowed a bit, because she was setting expectations _pretty_ high at home, you know?” She huffs. “I mean by now I’ve got my parents to where the occasional A is reason for praise, so that’s alright, but still. Don’t tell her,” she turns to Helena, “but she’s _impossible_ to live up to, and that’s why I’m not even trying.”

Helena raises her eyebrows. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she says, and mimes zipping her lips shut. 

“Hey, do you have siblings?” Olivia asks Helena, and for a while, Helena does her best to dance around revealing too much of her home life. Tracy is looking at her thoughtfully every now and then, and Helena wonders how much the younger Bering is puzzling together, after yesterday. 

It does make her think of Charles again, though, and of contacting him. 

Tuesday goes by without any further incidents; they listen to the rest of the Planets’ Suite in the attic, and talk about its influence on movie scores. Myka doesn’t bring up Helena’s crying spell, thankfully, but she sticks close to Helena on the futon – not that Helena minds. She might mind the label of ‘snuggle bug’, but not the activity that led to it, not at all. Not when it calms her, grounds her, recharges her like a dried-up plant that is suddenly getting watered. And Myka is happy to provide. She is over the worst of her period, but Helena is still cramping, if nowhere near as badly as Myka was. Still, laying quietly together is a welcome respite, and as she settles into Myka’s arms, she barely thinks of her aches. She’s made an appointment with Myka’s gynecologist the Friday after Thanksgiving; Doctor Calder refuses to prescribe the pill without having seen the patient. Which is fair enough, and Helena still has enough pills to last her that long. 

Snuggles are much better medicine right now. 

Okay, yes, they also mean Helena is right up close to Myka’s body, and now that they’re both in less pain, it’s a bit harder to focus on something that’s not-

The muscles she can feel move in Myka’s shoulder or Myka’s arm or even Myka’s chest when they’re snuggled together.

The scent in her nose, of deodorant, laundry detergent, shampoo and _Myka._

The soft swell of Myka’s curves – her hips against Helena’s, her butt when they spoon, the top of her breasts against Helena’s chin when Helena curls into Myka’s side. 

They haven’t kissed in a while, not seriously. Not snogged the way they used to; just comfort kisses pressed with closed lips to innocent pieces of skin. Not since Helena ran away into the darkness of the attic after Myka said-

What she said. Helena’s thoughts still shy away from recalling the actual words, even only in her mind.

Partly Helena is glad about the not-kissing, and partly she misses it – but she does not miss the conflict of emotions that kissing brings with it, of wanting to go on but dreading it at the same time. It’s difficult enough just feeling Myka’s body like this; Helena doesn’t think she’d really stand a chance right now if they were to start making out. She’d be unable to stop, and she knows she’d regret it afterwards, and with all of that in mind it’s _really_ for the best to not even start.

They’re not talking about it either, and Helena is fine with that too – she doesn’t _want_ to talk about it. As things stand, Myka is patient and goes with Helena’s wishes and seems alright with that, and really that’s all Helena needs. Myka is her haven, her safe place, more: her happy place, just as much as music is or more. Knowing that they don’t have to talk, that they can just _be,_ that all Helena has to do when they’re up in the attic is cross into Myka’s personal space to get hugged: _that’s_ what she needs.

The rest of the week passes just as easily; the most exciting bits of it are when Helena and Leena are working on their plan for an appropriately gory addition to Pete’s potluck party on Saturday. That takes Helena’s mind nicely off the fact that she’ll very probably sleep in the same room as Myka. Leena, apart from one or two sidelong glances when Helena is silent for too long, refrains from commenting, but has a very knowing smile. 

Saturday morning is spent perfecting the consistency of the strawberry and raspberry juice ‘blood’ Helena will use in-slash-under Leena’s red-dyed cinnamon roll ‘intestines’ – it needs to pulse realistically when Pete cuts into them, but not so much so that Mrs. Lattimer’s kitchen will look like a slasher film set. A bit of gore is alright, Leena reassures her; Mrs. Lattimer never complains about the clean-up for that particular party. Still, there’s no need to overdo it, is there? Berry juice is sticky.

In the end, Helena ditches her plans for a small motorized pump and opts for a small rubber balloon instead that she’ll operate by hand, hopefully somewhat unobtrusively. The ‘blood’ goes into the vegan sausage casings she’s bought earlier that week, then she winds them through and under Leena’s cinnamon rolls (which aren’t rolled up at all, just snakes of dough that wind around the baking pan in a fair approximation of a human’s bowels) and connects the pump, double checking everything for leakages – and they’re good to go. Apparently Mrs. Lattimer has an open house policy, so the moment they both decide they’re done, Leena tells Helena to load the whole thing into her car and off they go. 

Claudia and Josh are already there, setting up a beverage bar that looks transplanted straight from a ‘mad scientist’ set. There’s a stack of notes with ‘secret formulas’ for mixing the ingredients, several racks of test tubes the provenance of which Helena doesn’t question too closely, and an impressive container of dry ice. 

Claudia introduces Helena to Jeannie, Pete’s sister, who communicates in American Sign Language, which poses a difficulty: Helena knows a few signs and letters, but they’re British ones and don’t correspond to the American equivalents at all. As a result, she, Josh, Leena and Jeannie spend an instructional (and hilarious) hour or so comparing the two languages. Jeannie is in the middle of her master of education thesis and it shows: she’s an engaging teacher. Her boyfriend Arnaud is a postgrad student from French Guyana, and for a while he and Helena compare notes on how weird Americans are. Arnaud’s accent is charming, and he’s delighted when he finds out that Helena speaks a little French; Jeannie soon retaliates by slipping into sign language with Pete, Jane and Claudia. Myka and Steve arrive within minutes of each other, each carrying a large covered bowl.

Throughout the afternoon there are movies in the background – subtitled of course – that get creepier the later it gets. Pete stops playback at four, declaring that he’s too hungry to go on ignoring all the amazing food any longer, and that he doesn’t want to be bothered by trick-or-treaters during dinner. 

Myka has brought a green-dyed variant of mac and cheese that looks positively nauseating, and Steve has created jelly earthworms that he has liberally sprinkled into the salad he made. Jeannie’s dish consists of three meatloaves, two of which are shaped like hands and sport almond fingernails. The final one and centerpiece is shaped like a skull, complete with peeling bacon ‘skin’, olive eyeballs, and teeth also made from almonds. It fits very nicely atop Leena and Helena’s ‘bowels’; the imagery is truly garish.

Helena gets teased quite a bit on if she’s going to stomach any of it – truth to tell, she can only bring herself to eat the mac and cheese by not looking at it (it is almost revoltingly green), and she ostentatiously picks the worms out of the salad to much hilarity around the table (seriously, though: who’d eat jelly in a salad?) Then again, Steve does so too, and that draws an even larger laugh. 

Claudia’s drinks are amazing, especially since she apparently coated some of the test tubes with a (non-toxic, of course) substance that makes the contents unbearably bitter, and others with a different substance that causes any liquid poured into the tube to solidify into shiny but inedible crystals. Josh then regales them with the tale of how Claudia had planned on a third substance that would have created elephant toothpaste, only to be vetoed by Mrs. Lattimer. When Helena surreptitiously googles ‘elephant toothpaste’, she absolutely understands why; yes, the kitchen floor and surfaces are covered in newspaper and painter’s tarps, but still. At least as far as her own contribution is concerned, she can control the spurts of her ‘blood’. Nevertheless, she marvels at the ingenuity and effort that these people pour into creating food that looks positively _vile,_ and can only hope that her and Leena’s entry will hold up. 

It does. 

When Pete cuts into the tray of cinnamon bowels, he hits one of Helena’s ‘veins’, and the ensuing berry sauce fountain reaches halfway to the ceiling. Pete yelps and then laughs himself almost sick; every time Helena presses on the little balloon pump in her hand to make another ‘heartbeat’ spurt happen, he starts anew. “Best dessert ever!” he gasps over and over, and Helena grins proudly at Leena, accepts every offered high five. The others are cheering and whooping too, Mrs. Lattimer is wiping tears from her eyes at her son’s antics, and Myka?

Myka is looking only at Helena, and has stars in her eyes. 

Afterwards, Mrs. Lattimer leaves to dress up for the trick-or-treaters, and Myka finds Helena on the couch. They resume watching movies, and Myka starts hiding her face in Helena’s shoulder so as not to have to face the jump scares. Halfway through the first movie, Mrs. Lattimer bursts in on them dressed up and made up like a Borg-ified Starfleet officer, complete with a half-bald wig and assimilation tubes that shoot out and retract at the flick of a wrist, and spew silly string at people. Again, Helena marvels at the effort, especially since Mrs. Lattimer is only wearing this to spook the people coming to her house. 

They rewind the part of the movie they missed admiring Mrs. Lattimer’s costume, and Myka resumes her hiding spot again, progressing to the point where she’s staying half-hidden behind Helena throughout the climax of the movie. When the credits roll and Pete turns on the light, Jeannie grins at them and then teaches the lot of them all manner of signs related to the gay community – and she doesn’t ask which specific term applies, which is a nice touch. 

“Okay, up next is the Halloween anniversary movie, then we get the mattresses out, and then we watch The Big One,” Pete announces, voice droning sinisterly on the last words. Then his face softens. “Mykes, feel free to leave anytime, okay?”

Myka clears her throat. She looks a bit discomfited, Helena thinks, but nowhere near as much as she’d expected, which is probably the result of several years’ worth of this happening. “Yeah, I… probably won’t make it through this one, even.”

Arnaud’s eyebrows are high, but he doesn’t comment. Maybe Jeannie also knows and has primed him, or maybe he’s just taking things in quietly before talking, but either way, for Myka’s sake, Helena is glad. 

Steve gives Myka a reassuring smile. “It’s good, but yeah, understandable. _Because_ it’s good.”

When the prison transport that Michael Myers is on crashes, Myka shakes her head decisively and gets up. “Nope, I’m out. Nuh-uh. Good night everyone, and sweet dreams.” She shudders ostentatiously as she utters the last two words, and everyone laughs, but their replies are kind, and when Helena rises to tag along, the reactions to that are nowhere near as ribald as she’d expected. Yes, there’s a bit of heckling, but mostly people are focused right back on the screen where a young person is approaching a wounded security guard. 

“Calling it,” Myka says in a low voice in Helena’s ear, pointing to the scene, “that kid’s gonna get killed. Let’s get out before it happens, okay?”

Helena nods and turns her back on the TV. “Let’s.” She retrieves her bag from the entryway and then follows Myka up the stairs. 

“This is the guest bathroom,” Myka says, tapping a door they’re passing, then pointing out a hallway to their right, “and through there is Pete’s and Jeannie’s bedrooms.” Then she turns left, down another hallway. “This one’s… ours,” she says, stopping in front of one of two doors in it. “Or, um, mine, I guess, if you’ve changed your mind. In which case that one is ready too, Jane said.” She nods at the other door. 

Helena’s brows crease in confusion. “Changed my mind?” Why would she?

“I mean,” Myka says with an awkward shrug, “I don’t want to assume. Anything, you know? Beginning with whether or not this is still what you want.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Well, yeah, but still.” Myka drops her gaze. “I, uh… I just don’t want to assume,” she repeats. 

Helena finds that she actually appreciates that. “Thank you,” she says in a low voice, barely more than a whisper. She reaches for Myka’s hand. “Shall we?” she asks, nodding her chin at the still-closed door, willing her voice to be firm and confident. 

She can do this. This isn’t… that day. Yes, she’s entering a room with someone while there are guests downstairs, but this is Myka, and a house full of accepting people. She can do this.

The door swings open, and they both step into the room. It’s small and a bit impersonal; a guest bedroom after all. The bed is a queen sized one, clearly made up for two people, and Myka’s bag is already lying at the foot of it. 

Myka is blushing where she stands, a few feet into the room and looking at Helena with her hand at the back of her neck. “Do you… um, have a preference for which side of the bed?”

Helena stares at her, stares at the bed, and gulps. 

Can she do this?

Should she?

“You don’t have to pick now,” Myka goes on, “I mean it’s barely half past seven, nowhere near bedtime. Right? We can just, you know. Just… sit. Talk. Read? That kind of thing?” Myka is still standing, rooted to the spot and worrying her bottom lip. 

Well. Helena can do that, can’t she. 

With a decisive nod, she puts her bag onto the bed next to Myka’s. “What do _you_ usually do?”

“Read,” Myka says at once, smiling a relieved smile. “I once told everyone the first movie of the afternoon was already too spooky, and came up here and read the whole of The Return of the King in one sitting.”

Helena raises her eyebrows, Myka grins back at her, and just like that, they’re back on solid ground. 

“I do usually get ready for bed pretty much straight away,” Myka says, as if in afterthought. “Like, I don’t want to get back up again once I’ve settled down, you know?”

Helena shrugs. “Sounds like a good idea,” she says. “You go first?”

Myka nods and grabs her bag, and gives an awkward little wave-and-smile as she leaves. A few moments later, Helena can hear water running, then the buzz of an electric toothbrush. 

When Myka comes back, she’s holding a small horseshoe-shaped plastic box, her face has been washed of its make-up, and her hair is plaited into two braids. She’s wearing flannel pajamas and fuzzy socks. Unwilling to let her eyes linger too long and lose herself in how positively adorable Myka looks, Helena heads to the bathroom herself. She quickly goes through her routine and then changes into the long-sleeved shirt and yoga pants she’s been favoring ever since it got cold. She folds over the pants’ broad waistband and smooths down the fabric; they’re getting a bit threadbare, but she hasn’t found an equally perfect replacement here, so she’s loath to get rid of them. Catching her reflection’s gaze in the mirror, she looks at herself: bare of make-up, hair tied back in a simple low ponytail with not a single bobby pin to tame the loose strands curling around her face and neck, wearing a loose grey shirt with a faded A New Hope print and her best-beloved oldest trousers. She’s a long shot from the girl who strode into Lincoln High at the beginning of September, dressed to impress and anxious to fit in. 

She has found her group; she’s even okay with its silly name she’s been assigned. She has never fitted in anywhere so deeply so fast; never felt so at home with anyone so soon. 

She would have died rather than let anyone in any of her old schools see her like this, for starters. The only way to get her mother to allow her to wear a Star Wars shirt for sleeping was to promise that no one would ever see Helena in it – which may or may not be the main reason that Helena picked it for today.

Here, tonight, Myka will see her like this; tomorrow morning, the rest of the Teen Avengers will – and Helena doesn’t mind. On the contrary, she knows that with these people her shirt will gain her points, faded as it is. And Myka has seen her without make-up before and hasn’t batted an eyelash, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to know your friend – girlfriend, Helena corrects herself with a little thrill – both with and without a full face on. 

And maybe it is, to Myka. Maybe Myka truly doesn’t care one way or another. Helena gives a small smile, sees it reflected in the mirror – and wonders if there aren’t stars in her eyes too, when she thinks of Myka Bering. 

When she returns, Myka is sitting on the bed and gazes up at Helena with her head tilted to the side. “Is your stomach alright? No ill effects from the food?” The worry in her eyes is palpable and understandable (considering Helena has spent quite a bit longer in the bathroom than Myka has), and very welcome in its mundanity. 

“Nope,” Helena says again, and finds a smile for this so very ordinary worry. “All fine. Took my last pill yesterday, so I might get my period tomorrow or Monday, but right now, everything’s fine.” She, too, sits down on the bed, close enough that her fingers are mere inches from Myka’s. 

“Good,” Myka says emphatically and smiles back. “That’s good.” Her mouth hangs open for a moment, as if she wants to say more, then it snaps shut and Myka’s smile turns awkward, and Helena realizes Myka is just about as nervous as she is. 

And that calms her right down for some reason. Her own smile steadies, and so, in turn, does Myka’s. “Here we are, then,” Helena says softly. 

“Yeah,” Myka breathes, and her smile gains a glint of excitement. “A whole night just for the two of us.” A bit of worry steals back into her eyes. “I mean… for talking. Or reading. Or whatever you want, really.” Then her eyes grown round with sudden anxiousness. “Oh my god.”

“What?” Helena asks, now concerned as well.

“You… you can’t sleep when someone’s there.”

“Oh!” Helena laughs weakly. “Yes. But… I’ve almost fallen asleep around you a few times now. Who knows, you might be the exception. If not, there’s always next door, right?”

“Right.” Myka nods. She looks reassured, and her smile is back. “Right, yeah. God, for a moment there…” she laughs, still a bit awkward, and runs a hand over her hair, tugs at one of those two little-girl braids. She notices Helena watching, and drops her hand self-consciously. “What?”

“I’ve never seen you wear your hair like that.” The words just fall from Helena’s mouth, and for a moment, she’s mortified, cursing her tongue running away from her like that.

“Oh!” Myka blushes, but she’s still smiling, so Helena’s words can’t have been all that bad. “It’s what I do at night, you know? Otherwise it’s gonna be hopeless in the morning. All tangled up.” She runs her gaze over Helena’s hair, rolling her eyes slightly at the end. “I guess you wouldn’t really know, huh?”

Helena shakes her head wordlessly. Then she swallows. “Not like I haven’t heard of the issue, though,” she offers with a smile of her own. Leena, she thinks, sleeps with a cap on – who knows what Mrs. Frederic does to protect her hairdo. Helena has never seen it look anything less than perfect. Then again, she has never seen Mrs. Frederic in night clothes. Leena, yes; every time she has to wake Helena up (which is only three out of five weekdays these days, thankfully). Mrs. Frederic? Never.

“I guess,” Myka concedes. “I’m envious, just so you know.”

Helena finds a loose strand of her hair with her fingers, holding it up between them. “Of this?” She drops it with a shrug, then tugs very gently at the end of one of Myka’s braids. “The feeling is mutual, I assure you.”

“What, seriously?” Myka says with a scoffing laugh. 

“Yes seriously,” Helena insists. “Serious curl envy. Your hair always looks so… lively. Mine’s straight and boring.”

“Your- what? Your hair is not _boring.”_ Myka is staring at Helena now. “Do _not_ tell me that you think your hair is _boring.”_

“I shan’t, then,” Helena says with another shrug. 

“But it’s so shiny!” Myka protests. “It’s, like, silky and smooth and when you move your head it-” she breaks off, pinching her lips together and blushing fiercely. “It is _not boring.”_

“If you insist,” Helena replies, more to stop her than anything else. 

Myka looks at her as if she sees straight through it. Then she grins. “We always want what we don’t have, right? I’d kill for having straight hair – without having to straighten it for hours, I mean – and you apparently want curls. Like, have you ever _had_ curls?” When Helena shakes her head, Myka goes on, very seriously, “Totally overrated. Much more trouble than they’re worth. Promise.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Helena smiles. Myka’s insistence is sweet. 

“You better,” Myka nods. 

There’s an outcry down in the living room that’s loud enough to carry up to them. “Wonder what that was about,” Helena says, glancing at the door. 

“I don’t,” Myka says firmly, lying down on the bed with her hands behind her head. “I really, truly don’t.”

Helena grins and flops down next to her, and as if they’ve done this a million times, they slide into their embrace – Myka’s arm around Helena’s shoulders, Helena’s arm across Myka’s midriff, legs tangling. Helena’s naked feet seek the warmth of Myka’s calves, burrowing under them even if that means her knees stick up at a weird angle. 

“Whoa,” Myka mutters in response, “cold.”

Helena hums. “Sorry. Should have brought warm socks, I suppose.”

“You can have mine,” Myka says immediately, already halfway reaching down to take them off. 

Helena stills her with a determined hand. “I’m _not_ taking away your socks.”

“So you’d rather leech off my warmth?”

“They’ll be warm in a moment. It’ll be fine.”

“Should have brought another pair,” Myka sighs. “Mom _was_ wondering, the other day, if you’re prepared for a Colorado winter. You know, if you have a winter coat, that kind of thing.” She laughs softly. “Moms will be moms, I guess.”

Helena keeps her quiet – she’s not sure she can reply anything in a stable voice. The only worry her own mother ever uttered regarding Helena’s attire was that it had to be suitable for whichever occasion they were presenting Helena at, not the weather of that day. Myka’s mother, who has spent all of one evening with Helena, has with that one simple worry shown more concern for Helena’s well-being than Helena ever remembers getting from her own mother. 

“You do, right?” Myka says, sounding worried. “Have a winter coat? Or do we need to go shopping again?”

“Yes, yes, I have a coat,” Helena says thickly. “You were there when I bought it.” She may have arrived with only one suitcase – but she also has her card. And her parents haven’t cut her off from her bank account, nor have they stopped putting money in, so Helena has made use of it. 

“Wh- oh that one?” Myka laughs. “Yeah, no, that’s not gonna be warm enough. Like, maybe during the day, but once the sun’s down it gets seriously cold here. Don’t worry, though, we’ll just go and get you one. Tomorrow, if you want to. And fuzzy socks.” Her arm tightens around Helena’s shoulder. “Can’t let you go cold; I’ll never hear the end of it. Are your feet better at all?”

Helena doesn’t reply, just burrows more deeply into Myka’s arms. 

“Snuggle bug,” Myka murmurs into her hair. 

Helena doesn’t dispute the claim. She still isn’t fond of the term, but the way Myka says it, so warm and smiling and welcoming, makes it alright. 

They lie in silence for a while, and Helena thinks that this isn’t so bad after all. It’s nice to know that there’s a room next door, just in case, but she’s quite sure it won’t be necessary. It does beg the question, though: “Why so many bedrooms, do you know?”

Myka tenses a bit. “That’s, ah… not really my story to tell.”

It’s a reply Helena’s gotten before. Myka used to volunteer at some human rights’ association or other last summer, and sometimes she’ll talk about generalities of the cases that she’s worked on. But she’ll always refrain from going into details, and always give this explanation. She’s meticulous about that, and Helena understands, even approves. “Alright,” she says therefore – she doubts she’ll ever ask Pete or Mrs. Lattimer, but it is alright; it’s not like this is a burning question she needs an answer to. “Oh, different topic,” she goes on. “Did Mr. Nielsen end up sending your recommendation letter?”

“Yes,” Myka says with an abysmal sigh. “Actually he sent it ten days ago, he just didn’t tell me. God, he…” Helena can feel her shake her head. “Anyway. Yeah, he did.”

“So that’s all boxes ticked off, right? Right on time. Early, even, if you had known.” Helena smiles as she says it – it’s very Myka, this result. “Overachiever,” she adds fondly. 

“If it gets me into Yale? Any fucking time,” Myka gives back, sounding supremely unconcerned. 

“Fingers crossed, darling,” Helena says, and ghosts a kiss to Myka’s jaw. “For luck,” she adds, just like Leia to Luke. 

“Hey, I’m not your brother,” Myka points out, and it’s wonderful that she knows precisely what Helena’s alluding to. “Nor your sister, nor any other kind of relation.”

Helena loves that Myka is just as much of a geek as she is. “And thank god for that,” she replies, pressing another kiss next to the first, then settling down again. 

“Speaking of brothers, though, did you ever end up contacting Charles?”

“I haven’t,” Helena says. “I… I’m not sure what I’d say to him.” How would she even start?

“Just… just tell him what you’re doing, where you’re at?”

Helena sighs. “I suppose I could.”

“Hey, no pressure, okay? I was just curious, that’s all.” Myka is silent for a moment, then goes on, “Tracy is being kinda devious, you know. With Dad. About being gay. She just drops Shaw’s name every now and then, how the kids in chess club love her or how her family had this big donation drive the other day, and just like that, Dad’s okay with letting her sleep over at Shaw’s house this weekend.” Again, Helena can feel Myka’s head shaking, can feel the incredulous chuckle that bubbles through Myka’s chest. “The thing is,” Myka goes on, “she’s outright doing this to ‘loosen him up’ as she calls it. Not to his face, but she’s told me, earlier this week on our way to school. For when I come out to him. And I think that’s the nicest thing she’s ever done for me. Even though I’m pretty sure it won’t work,” she adds. 

“Why not?”

Myka scoffs. “He’s always held me to a different standard than her. I doubt this is going to be any different. Still, though, it’s the thought that counts, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.” Helena bites back a more strident comment. 

“Nothing _you_ did,” Myka says, almost dismissively. 

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know,” Myka sighs. “Sorry, babe.” She kisses Helena’s forehead. 

Helena does a double take. “‘Babe’?” she asks. 

“See, I don’t think I can pull off ‘darling’,” Myka replies, and Helena thinks she can feel the heat of a blush rising in Myka’s cheek. 

“Well alright, but ‘babe’?”

“Honey? Sweetie? Sugar bun?” 

Helena shudders. “Do we have to?”

“Well, I kinda like when you call me darling,” Myka admits, and Helena is sure now – the other girl’s cheek is aflame. “And I’d like to… I’d like to call you something special, too.”

“And I understand that, but…” Helena twists her mouth, even if Myka can’t see it. Then she relaxes it. “I suppose if that’s the word that comes natural-”

Myka’s laugh interrupts her. “God, no.” There’s still a chuckle rumbling in her chest when she asks, “Does ‘darling’ come natural to you?”

“It’s what Aunt Tee used to call me sometimes,” Helena says quietly. “My mum, too, but she calls everyone darling and never means it, so I can ignore her. But when Aunt Tee said it, I always knew she meant it.”

Myka’s breath stops for a moment. “Do you want me to call-”

“No.” Helena shakes her head immediately. “Please.” She can just about handle the idea of calling someone else what Aunt Tee used to call her, but having someone who’s not Aunt Tee use the endearment for her? No. 

“Okay.” Myka’s agreement comes just as quickly, and sounds at ease. “Speaking of, though, can I ask you something about your aunt?”

Helena hesitates only briefly. “Yes?” 

“Why do you pronounce Auntie so oddly? Like, not the ant versus ahnt thing, but the tee at the end?”

“Oh!” Helena is startled into a laugh. “It’s Aunt Tee, in fact,” she says, clearly enunciating the gap between the two words. “Her name was Christina, but she was a very staunch atheist. She said she approved of Jesus and his messages, but not of the Church, not any of them. So she had people call her Tina or Tee whenever possible. And all us kids called her Aunt Tee, and thought ourselves very clever.”

“It’s cute,” Myka says, with an audible smile in her voice. “She sounds like a cool kinda aunt.”

“She was.” Helena bites off the words. She isn’t really sure if she wants to talk about her, but-

“Tell me about her?” Myka asks, and there is nothing that Myka could ask that Helena wouldn’t do. 

“She’s… _was_ … my great-aunt, not my aunt,” she begins, haltingly. “I think I told you that already, didn’t I?” When Myka nods, Helena goes on, “She was the younger sister of my paternal grandmother. She never married, and had no children of her own, but she had a dog that loved everyone, very enthusiastic. Brutus – a tiny little white dog, despite the name.” She swallows as she thinks of Brutus and what became of him after Aunt Tee’s death, and decides she doesn’t want to go there now. Maybe another time. “And she loved Charles and me,” she goes on, “and Lucy and Sam, our cousins. Ever since we were small, she’d invite us over summer, two weeks each year, one fortnight for Charles and me, one for Lucy and Sam.” Helena falls silent for a moment. “I loved every minute I spent with her,” she says, and her throat is scratchy on the words. “She died last year, in March. This is the second summer I… haven’t…” her voice breaks. She’s not crying, but she also can’t go on.

“I’m sorry, Helena,” Myka murmurs, pulling her closer. “I’m so sorry.”

Helena tries to breathe around the hole that’s where her lungs should be. Myka’s hands are running up and down her back, and she uses their rhythm to steady her breaths, up down, in out. “She told me to be bold,” she whispers, when there’s air to do so. “To love boldly,” she corrects herself, because it somehow seems important that Myka should know Aunt Tee’s exact words. “She was so different from my parents, so much… so much _better._ I… She… she loved me. They… I don’t know.” She leaves it at that; Lord knows even those three words cost her.

Myka makes a small, despondent sound at the back of her throat. “Helena, I… you know I l-”

“Don’t,” Helena cuts her off, the word thick with panic. “I can’t- Please don’t say it.” 

Myka is silent for a moment, then nods, and her arms tighten around Helena’s shoulder again. “Okay,” she says softly. 

Helena is silent for much longer. “I know,” she says, then. It’s barely more than a whisper, but it thunders in her ears. She _knows_ that Myka loves her. Now that Myka has almost said it, it’s visible, clear as day; she can see it, feel it, sense it. Wrap herself in it. But the thought of hearing Myka say it, acknowledge it – she shies away from that thought, as if it could burn her. And she knows that she loves Myka too, loves her desperately, and she wants to tell her, but that thought is just as unthinkable, the words just as blistering on her tongue. 

“Okay,” Myka says again, and she sounds half satisfied, half anxious. “That’s… that’s good.” There is another pause, and then Myka says, “Even if it makes you sound… well, a little, anyway. Like a certain… scoundrel?”

It takes Helena a moment to parse that one, even if she was the one who made the first allusion to Star Wars earlier, even if she is the one wearing the Star Wars shirt. “Lord,” she groans, “that was, by far, the nerdiest thing you have _ever_ said.”

“Nerf herder,” Myka throws back at her, and it sounds just as gentle as ‘snuggle bug’ did, earlier. 

“I am neither stuck-up, nor scruffy, nor half-witted,” Helena asserts.

“You didn’t dispute the nerf herder, though.” 

“I don’t even know what nerfs _are,_ you dork.”

“Animals that need herding, _obviously.”_

It’s infuriating how completely Myka’s needling fails to infuriate Helena. No, if anything, it makes her feel both safe and imbalanced at the same time – safe in that Myka is very obviously very tender in her teasing, and imbalanced in that, for some weird reason, it brings Helena close to tears. 

“I always thought of them like sky bison,” Myka says when Helena doesn’t reply. “Like in Avatar. The animated show. You know?”

Helena racks her brain, jumping from the Star Wars track to this new one. Avatar. Sky bison. 

“Like Appa?” Myka provides. “Yip yip? You know, the big fella they all rode on?”

That’s when it clicks, and Helena can’t help but smile. Appa is precious, after all. “I wouldn’t mind having a flying bison,” she says, “even if I’d have to herd them.”

“See? Nerf herder.”

“It’s an honorable profession,” Helena claims, settling into her new role. “Much more reputable than flyboys or mercenaries.”

“Wouldn’t you be a flyboy, though? Or a flygirl, I guess? On a sky bison, I mean?”

Helena hums contemplatively. “I suppose so.” It’s an attractive thought. “Yes.”

“There you go, then. Flygirl nerf herder.”

“Dork.”

“I know,” Myka says, and her diction perfectly matches that of Harrison Ford in the cryo chamber, and Helena loves her, brilliantly and overwhelmingly and with all of her heart. 

She cranes her neck up slightly, and presses a kiss on Myka’s cheek. 

“Oh hi,” Myka says, and her cheek crinkles with a smile, with the hint of a dimple, even. She turns her head, and her lips, those beautiful, remarkable, singularly wonderful lips are in reach, and it is the easiest thing in the world to kiss them too, so Helena does. 

Kissing Myka is wondrous. It’s not just the softness of her lips, the readiness with which they meet hers, their familiarity. It’s not just the warm, fresh scent and taste, the knowledge of where to lick to make them part, where to suck to make Myka gasp. 

It’s what swells up within Helena when she does. Desire, yes, burning and needy, but not _just_ desire. Underneath it, intertwined with it, like the chords that lift the melody, is love, and Helena wonders for a very, very brief moment how she could have missed it or misunderstood its meaning. 

And just like a melody gains more depth when you add harmony to it, suddenly kissing Myka isn’t just about the mere physical act anymore, and it makes Helena slow down and stop. 

“Hey,” Myka says softly, even before she opens her eyes to look at Helena. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing.” Helena shakes her head and lifts herself up on her elbows, hovering above Myka to take her in. There is a tiny crease of worry between Myka’s eyebrows, and Helena reaches out one finger and smooths it away, then takes off Myka’s glasses and puts them on the bedside table. “Nothing is wrong,” she murmurs, following her finger’s journey across eyebrow and cheek down to Myka’s lips with her eyes. 

She wants to drink Myka in, every feature she sees, every last detail. She presses a kiss to the spot on Myka’s cheek where the dimple appears when Myka smiles widely enough to bring it out. Her hand curls around Myka’s jaw, urging her face to the side ever so gently so she can kiss the beauty mark high up on Myka’s cheekbone, kiss the end of her eyebrow, kiss the eyelid that has fluttered close by now, kiss the side of her nose, her chin, and finally her lips again, just the mere corner of them. Myka laughs a little breathlessly after that last one, a hitched sound that fits how Helena feels – hitched and stumbling and waiting on the cusp of something that is about to spill and wash them both away. 

“Helena,” Myka whispers, eyes slowly blinking open and meeting Helena’s gaze. The wonder in them seems endless, and Helena is sure her own expression mirrors it. She presses another kiss onto Myka’s lips in reply – not a desirous one, almost chaste in comparison to earlier. “Helena,” Myka whispers again, as if these almost inaudible three syllables mean everything that she might possibly ever want to say. Myka’s hand comes up to tuck a strand of Helena’s hair back behind her ear, then her fingers come to rest underneath her earlobe and along her jaw, palm warm on her cheek. Myka doesn’t pull, doesn’t urge, doesn’t say or make a move, just looks at Helena, eyes roaming as if she, now, is the one drinking it all in. Her eyes are brighter than Helena has ever seen them, as if from somewhere, somehow, the sun is shining into them. Her thumb strokes across Helena’s cheek once, twice, returns to stillness against the rest of her fingers. 

Helena’s heart is surging, beating up her throat and out of her ribcage; it drowns out every thought, every word, the very breath to utter them. She tries to swallow it back down, tries to suck enough air in, and Myka’s face breaks into a smile as she, too, takes a trembling breath, and expels it with a soft “wow” that is trailed by laughter, quiet, incredulous, joyous laughter. 

Helena can’t help but join, and then Myka reaches up with her other hand and pulls her close until Helena’s lying half atop her, one hand still on Myka’s cheek, the other tucked underneath her girlfriend’s shoulder blade in an attempt to somehow return the embrace she’s being given. 

“Wow,” Myka says again, and the wonder that was visible in her eyes is audible in her voice now. “I get it now.” Helena makes a questioning sound, and Myka goes on, “Why people write songs and books and poems about this. If I had the words, I would, too. I… I don’t know where to put it, you know?”

“Where to put what?”

“Everything,” Myka breathes out. “Everything that wants out when I look at you.” She kisses the part of Helena that’s closest to her, which happens to be the tip of her ear, and tightens her embrace, squeezes once, almost painfully, then relaxes her arms again. Laughs again, a sound of sheer joy that bubbles up from within her and reverberates right through Helena, perched on top as she is. Then she turns them, so that they’re both on their sides and facing each other, and tucks Helena’s hair back behind her ear again. “You,” she says, just the one word, but it’s filled with so much, riding on the kind of gaze she’s giving Helena along with it. 

Helena could drown in that gaze. Could lose herself in it. Could spend the rest of her life looking at nothing else, happily ever after. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, as if she could inhale the word on Myka’s lips, the look in Myka’s eyes. And with the air entering her lungs, the Calmato from Clair de Lune wells up in her, arpeggios tugging at the her fingers, shoulders already half in motion to follow the notes, and just like she knew which words to set to Venus’ phrase last Sunday, she knows which words are pushing on her tongue now, surging to her airways as inescapable as the crescendo leading to the recurrence of Clair de Lune’s first motif, the motif that so clearly, _clearly_ says, “Myka, I love you,” even if the syllables don’t sit _quite_ right on the notes, but what does that even matter when they need to get out? 

She only notices that she has actually said the words when Myka’s breath hitches, a stutter in the steady up and down of the chest underneath her arm that makes Helena blink and re-focus.

Myka looks stunned. And then the most radiant smile breaks across her face like a sunrise shining light across the land, a crescendo all of its own – that stutters and falters even at its peak, with a small crease of concern marring her eyebrows again. “Does… does that mean I… I can say it too?”

And just like that, reality comes crashing back, like a stack of cymbals sliding and smashing to the floor. Helena gulps. “I… don’t know,” she whispers. 

The crease deepens as Myka nods. A brave little smile comes out. “Then let’s not push it,” Myka suggests, cupping Helena’s cheek with one hand for a moment and pulling her close for a quick kiss. “As long as you know. That’s what matters.” Her eyes search Helena’s face, and Helena is quick to nod that, yes, she knows. 

Helena releases a long breath and lets her head sink into the pillow again. In reply, Myka rolls onto her back, and moments later they’re in each other’s arms again, and under her cheek, Helena can feel Myka’s heart slow down. 

A scream breaks the silence, traveling up the stairs. “Claudia,” Myka murmurs as Helena flinches. “She gets like that with the really bad jump scares. Especially when Josh sits behind her and grabs her at the same time.”

“I would _elbow_ a bloke if he did that to me.”

Myka chuckles. “I don’t doubt it. God, I’m glad I’m not down there.”

Helena smiles and wiggles her upper body a little bit to settle more closely into Myka’s arms. “Same.”

Again, Myka chuckles. It’s a lovely feeling, the little bubbling of laughter reverberating through where Helena’s body touches Myka’s. Then there’s a kiss being pressed to Helena’s temple. “So much better,” Myka croons. There’s no better word to describe it; the way her voice drops half a register, the low volume of it – Helena wonders how Myka singing would sound, when a few words already sound like this. 

Then her thoughts return to the little chuckle, and to quite where she felt it, and she realizes that she can feel the swell of one of Myka’s breasts against her own, and all of a sudden, that is all she can focus on. 

They’re in pajamas. 

Meaning, there is precisely one layer of clothing on Helena, and, presumably, only one layer of clothing on Myka. 

One. 

Meaning, only _two_ layers of clothing separate-

Helena blinks. Swallows.

“Are you okay?” Myka has noticed, and Helena’s heart thunders in her ears. When she doesn’t answer, Myka moves slightly underneath her, swell sliding against swell, and good Lord, that’s _torture._ “Helena?”

Helena swallows again, and slowly raises herself on one elbow, taking the utmost care not to move anything against anything in any torturous ways. Some of what is currently fusing her thoughts together has to be showing on her face, because when her and Myka’s eyes meet, Myka’s mouth drops open, then her pupils widen, then her nostrils flare. 

“…oh.”

Helena can’t breathe nowhere near as deeply as she wants to, for reasons against reasons, and so her breath is coming quick and shallow through her open mouth. She can’t tear her eyes away from Myka’s, and they’re getting larger and larger as she bends down, pulled not by electromagnetism, not by gravity, but by the same force that binds protons and electrons together, the same force that forms quarks into protons and electrons, stronger than the former two by several orders of magnitude, effective only at very close range, and that range is getting closer and closer by the millisecond and-

There’s a big roar of laughter coming from downstairs, and it propels Helena from the bed with as much force as an electron leaving an atomic nucleus.

“I…” she begins, but has no idea how to go on. 

Myka is staring at her, open-mouthed, confusion written plainly across her face, and Helena tries to find words, desperately tries to make any of her thoughts stand still for long enough to be vocalized. Her arms work as though they stand any chance at catching neuronal activity out of thin air, and her elbow connects with the doorjamb – that’s how Helena finds out just how far she’s rushed from the bed. She winces, both at the realization and at the numbness that spreads through her arm.

And Myka’s mouth snaps shut, and her face is suddenly awash with understanding, and she sits up and scoots to the top of the bed, leans against the headboard, pulls up her knees, folding her arms around them. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly, and suddenly her empathy becomes unbearable. 

Helena stares at her a moment longer, then, with her eyes on Myka and with fingers that are prickling pins and needles, she grabs the doorknob behind her and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s where we can’t avoid [Clair de Lune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvFH_6DNRCY) any longer. Let me know if you agree with Helena's choice of lyrics for the main motif!
> 
> And! Hat tipped to Aydil who called it on Aunt Tee's name a while ago!


	20. Myka

Myka stares at the closed door, thunderstruck for the second time in as many minutes. 

Okay, yeah, so she does kinda understand why Helena jumped off the bed just now; the reminder that there are other people in the house must have spooked her. 

Okay. 

And yeah, Helena has run before, so that isn’t too out of the ordinary, either, is it?

Softly, through the closed door, Myka can hear another door click open and shut. So… Helena’s in the other bedroom, then. 

Good thing Jane hadn’t batted an eye when Myka had come to her about that. The memory is still mortifying even now, when it’s obvious that it was the right thing to do, but boy was it hard to stand in front of your best friend’s mom and kinda secondary mother figure, and stammer out that you think Helena might, _and might not,_ want to… spend the night… in your bed.

Thank god Jane had not batted an eye. Not a single comment, either, just an ‘I’ll get both guest rooms ready for you,’ and done. 

Myka exhales, and it’s shaky. 

Now what.

Christ, _now_ what?

Myka tries to parse everything that happened just now – Helena had been a bit jittery in the beginning, okay. And then she’d made her decision to stay, and they had snuggled, kissed… spoken of Helena’s aunt, spoken of love. Helena had said she loved Myka, _out loud,_ her diction fluid and halting at the same time like lyrics to a song playing in Helena’s mind and who knows, maybe that’s exactly what it had been, the same way she’d spoken along to Venus last weekend. 

What do you call it when a song waxes and wanes, rises and falls? Their conversation had felt like that, in a way. Swinging from love to nerf herders like a pendulum, but it had felt right, hadn’t it? It’d been okay, until… until they’d kissed like _that,_ like they hadn’t since Helena had bolted the last time, and then Helena had bolted again.

Myka touches a finger to her lips, ghosting across them. Is it the kissing that’s the problem, or the people downstairs? Is it her?

She can hear sounds from next door now; bed springs creaking, a muffled thump. 

Myka can just about envision Helena sitting down on the other bed – if the wall between their two rooms was transparent, they’d see each other; she knows both beds face this wall. But the wall isn’t transparent, and Myka is pretty sure that her going over right now wouldn’t be a good idea. Still, though, if she could at least see for herself if Helena is okay. If she could tell Helena that it’s alright, that she understands, that this is fine-

But she can’t. Short of going over, she can’t. And alright, she followed Helena last time Helena bolted, but… should she do it again? Would Helena expect that? More importantly: does she want that? Plus, last time Myka followed Helena, Helena’s reaction had been… 

Myka’s hands fall to her waist now, and she remembers Helena’s fingertips searing their way across her skin. But she also remembers what came after that; Helena’s utter bewilderment and the way she almost fainted, back on the futon. Maybe if Myka hadn’t followed, hadn’t pushed on top of pushing, maybe that wouldn’t have happened. And who knows what might happen if she pushes now, if she goes over when Helena isn’t ready-

And then she hears a bed creaking again, and the click of a door, once, twice (open, shut), and then a third time, not muffled by anything.

 _Her_ door swings open and there’s Helena, hesitant on the threshold, jaw clenched so hard it looks carved of stone, lips a flat line, eyes brimming with misgivings. 

Myka swallows. She feels like one wrong move will send Helena running again, like this is a make-or-break moment, like the world is holding its breath for Myka Bering to say the right sentence, do the right thing. 

But what the hell is the right thing to say or do right now?

She sits up, slowly, haltingly – she doesn’t want to scare Helena away by moving too fast. In a barely conscious move Myka licks her lip, then bites down on it, sucks the lower half into her mouth, and then curses herself, for Helena’s eyes flutter down to Myka’s mouth and that might have been a wrong move, considering. So Myka stops, and sucks only the inside of her cheek between her teeth, just the tiniest bit, in a way she knows is invisible from the outside. And she dips her head to catch Helena’s gaze again, and slowly, slowly, holds out her hand. 

“It’s okay,” she says, and it comes out halfway between a croak and a husk, and she clears her throat and says it again, “It’s okay.”

Helena’s eyes travel from Myka’s hand to her face; it’s the only thing about her that moves. One phrase of what Helena has told Myka comes back to her now – ‘she told me to be bold. To love boldly.’ Myka wonders if that is why Helena is here, back in this bedroom; if Helena is thinking of that too, if she’s letting it guide her. Because yeah, to come back to where you’ve bolted from takes boldness, takes courage. And maybe that courage has been all used up just by opening the door? Maybe-

Helena inhales, deeply. She takes a step into the room, she turns and closes the door, in a few sparse, very deliberate motions. 

The doubtfulness in her eyes hasn’t changed a single bit, and Myka is ready to swear that she’s never seen anyone do a braver thing, never seen anyone show more strength. And for someone with eidetic memories of very nearly her whole life, that’s saying something.

The bed dips as Helena climbs onto it. She doesn’t settle quite next to Myka, but as things stand, Myka takes what she’s being given – Helena on the same bed out of her own free will. By choice. 

Helena takes another deep breath and rolls her shoulders, wincing slightly as they crackle, then giving Myka an apologetic smile of the kind that Myka would expect in a classroom when Helena’s running late instead of here, now, after this, but she’ll take what Helena can give, and she smiles back. 

She did tell Helena it was okay, and she meant it. So, no apologies necessary; she’s glad that Helena’s back here, she kinda understands why Helena ran off and she’s hella impressed that she came back, and that can be that, right? 

So now what?

Helena is looking at her as if she’s asking herself the same thing. Then, with a small hum of inspiration, she leans off the bed and into her bag, and brings out her phone. 

“If you wanna do Spotify, I can hook you up to the Wi-Fi,” Myka says quite without thinking. She knows the Lattimers’ password, after all. But Helena shakes her head. 

“Thank you, but I actually have this on my phone,” she replies, and her voice is even and unhesitant as she speaks of music. “One of Charles’ favorite pieces; he wanted to play cello, but my parents made him learn violin. Joke’s on them,” she adds with a little huffed smile, “he taught himself cello anyway.” Then she looks at Myka. “You don’t happen to have a mobile speaker on you, do you? Would we be bothering anyone if we hear this out loud?”

Myka shakes her head. “No we wouldn’t, and no I don’t. But I know Pete has one. Should be in his room; d’you want me to go and get it?” She knows he won’t mind; not Pete, not for this.

“Please,” Helena says, and her smile is almost back to brilliant. “It would sound so much better.”

Myka has never been in Pete’s room faster or more readily. She ignores the apparent chaos – he does have a system if you’ve known him long enough, and so the number of spots where the speaker could be is limited. 

And then her eyes fall on his computer setup, and the set of speakers that are part of it. 

Classical music needs good speakers, right?

And really, it’s not like Pete needs them tonight. He’s downstairs, and will be all night with everyone else. He won’t even notice they’re gone if she puts them back first thing tomorrow morning. 

Myka nods to herself and checks that the speakers (two small ones and a subwoofer, and she’s really glad that there aren’t a five plus one system, because how would she carry those with only two arms?) are really connectible via a simple phone jack before she starts unplugging them.

The look of first stunned, then happy surprise on Helena’s face when Myka nudges the door open with her foot is totally worth it. 

And Myka has to admit, the music coming out of the speakers a moment later is worth it too. The name of the composer that Helena tells her sounds Eastern European, that’s as much as she can tell – it’s not Mozart, Beethoven or Bach, and that’s where her name recognition starts to give up on her – but oh, his music is nice. And it makes Helena relax even if it is at concert hall volume, and that’s the main thing. Helena’s fingers are moving as if she’s playing along, which is kinda weird because Myka can’t hear a piano in the piece, but maybe that’s just another way in which Helena enjoys listening to music, beyond the breathing and the facial expressions? Anyway, it’s kinda dorky kinda cute, and Helena being a dork is something Myka will always cherish, as rarely as it happens.

And then there’s a cello solo (that’s what it’s called, right?) that Myka recognizes. “That’s from The Witches of Eastwick!” she exclaims excitedly. “I know that one!”

Helena chuckles. “Indeed it is. That movie is, in fact, one of the reasons why Charles became so enamored with the cello. And I can assure you he had similar difficulties when he started out playing it, but he did not enter into a pact with the devil to make it work.”

Myka grins at her. Helena sounds back to normal, and it’s balm to Myka’s ears. There are parts in this piece that sound a bit like the cello calling and other instruments answering, but that might just be Myka remembering (and projecting) how Helena had breathed-slash-sung ‘Myka, can you hear me?’ during the Planets. Anyway, it’s sweet how sometimes Myka can predict that the music’s gonna get loud by the way Helena will brace herself. 

By now they’re back to lying on the bed, with Helena in Myka’s arms like they usually do on the futon, and Myka allows herself to breathe a bit more freely. Yeah, so lying like this still means that she can feel Helena’s boob against her side a little bit and Helena’s shoulder against her own boob, but she’s been ignoring that for weeks now; she can ignore it for longer. And maybe Helena can, too; it was her who snuggled into Myka’s arms, after all, not the other way around. It’s her who’s playing piano parts on Myka’s ribs that aren’t in this piece, not the other way around. That’s a bit harder to ignore, but still.

Presently the piece ends, in a finale that comes out of nowhere (except for Helena taking in a deep breath, which… needs to be ignored, too), and the phone falls silent. “That was nice,” Myka says. 

“Glad you liked it.” Myka can hear the happy smile in Helena’s words. 

“Is it… was it supposed to mean something too? Like the Planets?” Myka can’t pinpoint anything in particular. Like, a thunderstorm, maybe. Or a torrential river? Maybe? 

“No, not really,” Helena says and Myka breathes a sigh of relief. Then Helena goes on, “I mean music theory has it that certain keys have certain meanings, like C major sounding innocently happy, but-” 

“I’m sorry, what?” Myka laughs. 

“No, seriously!” Helena insists, and sits up, grabs her phone, looks something up and thrusts it at Myka. “Here.”

Myka frowns as she scrolls through the article Helena has pulled up. “Huh,” she says in the end. “That’s cool. Which one of these is what we just heard?”

“B minor.” 

Myka scrolls up again until she finds that entry. “Effeminate?” she snorts. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, just disregard that misogynist nonsense,” Helena says with a dismissive flip of her hand. “Specifics aside, music evokes emotions, in so many different ways across so many different cultures, and that’s fascinating. Some pieces lean into that very heavily; movie scores too. Others just use it to set the flavor, in a manner of speaking, an overall mood that might correspond to a subject matter, like a painter who chooses lighter colors on the red end of the spectrum for one piece or dark greens and browns for another.” 

Myka nods her understanding, and Helena _launches_ into a wealth of further information, lamenting not having a piano at hand to illustrate something in one moment and pulling up YouTube videos the next, and while Myka follows the explanations well enough, part of her is sitting back, reveling in how animated Helena is about this, and how at ease at the same time. 

It’s wondrous. 

Compare this girl to the girl sitting in class that first day of school, pale and tense and nervous: night and day. If Myka already thought that the first-week-of-September girl was beautiful, _this_ Helena?

Is wondrous.

At some point, Helena notices, stops mid-sentence, and sits back. “What?” she asks, eyes slightly narrowed. 

“No, please don’t stop,” Myka implores her. “This _is_ fascinating. I never knew this before, none of this, and that’s amazing in and of itself.” She’s too embarrassed to tell Helena how beautiful she thinks Helena is; she just wants to see more of it.

“What,” Helena laughs at that, “surprised that you’re learning something new at the ripe old age of seventeen?”

“Well yeah?” Myka spreads her arms in a wide shrug. “I mean I’m making decisions about the future of my life right now, and here I am, learning that there’s a whole field of study that people are spending years and decades of their lives on and I never even had an idea it existed and you know all about it. And you’re so into this – so why don’t you study this? It wouldn’t mean actually becoming a musician; I get that that’s a tough gig, but just look at you!”

“But that’s the thing,” Helena gives back. “I am just as interested in astrophysics, in nanofibers, in electric cars, in alternative ways to build cities. In writing, even. In so many things – how can I pick any one field and decide that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life?”

“I don’t know,” Myka says, feeling oddly glad that it was Helena who brought the topic up; it’s much easier to talk about this than about how much Helena’s enthusiasm makes her _glow._ Focus, Bering, she tells herself. Choice of major, that’s what we’re talking about. “For me it was Mr. Nielsen explaining how the justice system works,” she says, and then adds with a laugh, “He started out saying that with my attention to detail I’d make a good investigator, but why would I choose that when the DA is the one who calls the shots when it comes to taking things to trial, and why would I be a DA when the judge is the one who decides in the end? So, yeah, that’s how I ended up wanting to become a judge. At that point I just knew that’s what I wanted, you know? Maybe you haven’t gotten to that point yet, maybe it just hasn’t clicked for you yet.”

“Or maybe it won’t ever, and I’ll just toss a dart at a list and pick whatever it lands on,” Helena shrugs. Then she sighs. “I wish I had a goal like you.”

“Well, what are you good at?”

“You said I was good at figuring things out,” Helena reminds her, and Myka blushes. Yes, that is indeed something she has said. She even knows precisely when and where she did. “That I should go into engineering.”

Myka nods. “I still stand by that. I mean look at your berry juice veins today. That was engineering.”

Helena sighs again. “I suppose.”

“And it was _awesome,”_ Myka says firmly. “Like special effects from a movie, only real and not computer generated.”

“So, a skill that has died out, then.”

Myka wants to huff, wants to go on insisting that Helena did great, when she sees the teasing twinkle in Helena’s eyes. She glares at her a little, just to make a point, and then rolls her shoulders a little to loosen them up. “Anyway, you still have time to decide,” she says. “And even if you decide on one thing and realize it’s not the right thing, you can still change majors, right? Or is that not possible in English universities?”

“I’ve been thinking about going to college here in the US, actually,” Helena says, not quite meeting Myka’s eyes.

Myka’s heart stops short, then restarts with a painful stumble. “Y-you… have?”

Helena nods, still not looking up from where her fingers are now picking at the corner of her phone cover. “Yes,” she says softly. Then she takes a deep breath, and her eyes come up to meet Myka’s. “Might as well, right? It’s not like my parents want me near, so… so I might as well.”

“Yeah,” Myka says, and her thoughts are ablaze with possibilities. Okay, so Helena will need to figure out how to get into a US college with her UK A-levels, but that shouldn’t be too hard; she’s not the only one who ever wanted to do that, right? And for that, she’s gonna need to pass her A-levels at the end of the school year. And then yeah, that’s gonna be too late for regular decision admissions, but all that that means is that maybe Helena won’t get into college this fall, but maybe next-

Helena is looking at her, head cocked and smirk on her lips, and Myka realizes she’s waiting for her, Myka, to say something. “I’m sorry, what?” Myka asks.

Helena’s smirk widens into a smile. “I said I was going to ask your help, but I don’t want you diving into the deep end of it _right now;_ I’d much rather talk about other things.”

“Oh.” Myka blushes fiercely.

“You were, weren’t you,” Helena says, and it is so not a question.

“Maybe?” Myka draws out the word, loath to admit to what both she and Helena know already anyway.

Helena laughs. She does not look like someone who bolted from the room not too long ago, nor like someone who’s about to bolt either. As the clock moves towards midnight, they’re lying on the bed again, and Myka has put her bite guard in as preparation for sleep, and the pauses in their conversation grow longer and longer, and it looks more and more as though Helena has no intention of leaving. Myka has never felt more exhilarated and more at peace at the same time, but the thing is, it’s not even confusing anymore because this is just a part of what she feels for Helena. 

And it’s wondrous. 

And the wonder carries her right into sleep.

-_-_-

At some point in the night, she dimly notices someone moving very close to her, moving _away_ from her. She mumbles in protest, a hand returns to curl around hers, she goes back to sleep.

-_-_-

When she wakes up, it’s morning; there’s a little bit of daylight behind the curtains. Myka turns her head away from the window and-

“Hello,” Helena says in a low voice, right next to her.

Myka blinks a few times to get her eyes to stay open. “Hey,” she says. 

This is nice. 

This is right.

She reaches out and pulls Helena close, because yes snuggles.

This is just the best. Myka’s face has ended up buried in Helena’s neck, and it smells so good and her skin is so soft and Myka presses a kiss onto it and then shifts so that her lips lie on that soft, good-smelling skin. She hums a happy sigh and settles into this place and drifts off again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The piece mentioned here is [Dvorak’s Cello Concerto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJSlmoXpzfM), one of my all-time favorites. And I do adore the sudden, brassy, happy finale!


	21. Helena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will go up on Nov 10!

Helena stares down, then up at the unfamiliar ceiling, then down again. 

At Myka Bering, in her arms. 

Asleep.

With her breath tickling Helena’s neck, and her lips- Lord, her lips are on Helena’s clavicle.

Helena is aglow and afire, and it’s the most alive she’s ever felt. 

Yes, desire is pooling heavily in her belly, but further up, love wells like water from a spring, and the two feelings hang in a balance that Helena would rather give her slowly numbing arm than see disturbed. 

All the forces pulling at her are at equilibrium here, now, and for a moment, she can just breathe and _be._

And she doesn’t even need music for it. 

Just Myka in her arms. A sleeping Myka, with her lips on a sensitive spot of Helena’s skin. A Myka with a bite guard, which makes her lips jut out differently against Helena’s skin.

Myka.

Forget questions of which major or which university, all Helena wants is _this,_ in perpetuity. 

She even slept. 

Not as long as Myka, nor as deep, but they were in the same bed and Helena slept. Not until after pulling away and, in the end, withdrawing her hand – and she still has a bad conscience over that; Myka’s small, sleepy sound of disappointment had been hard to bear – but they were in the same bed and Helena _slept,_ and that is completely unprecedented and utterly wonderful. 

So she has trust issues. But is that any wonder, considering?

And Myka trusts her, so much so that here she is, wrapped around Helena and fast asleep again. 

There is nothing Helena would not do for her; _nothing._ She’d kill anyone who’d dare interrupt Myka’s sleep, for starters, but that’s just the immediate situation. 

She’s definitely up for _trying_ to get into Yale, or whichever university or college Myka ends up being accepted to. She might need to sit out a year – but she can do that in… well, whichever town Yale is located in, right? She’ll just get a job, waiting tables or whatever. Something along those lines. 

Just let her wake up like this every morning; let her watch as Myka wakes up, let her be the first thing those sleep-softened eyes see, that those sleep-warmed arms reach out for. 

The look on Myka’s face earlier-

Helena wants to never ever forget that look. The way Myka fought to keep her eyes open, the dreamy, content little sigh she gave when she burrowed into Helena, seeking what Helena had taken away the night before.

Oh, if only Helena could sleep like this, wound around her girlfriend’s body, not a care in the world. But no, she can’t even sleep on bloody planes or trains, and yesterday she lay awake for forever, listening as Myka’s breaths evened out, feeling it under her cheek, feeling Myka’s body twitch a few times as she settled into sleep – she had mixed feelings then too, equal parts protectiveness and envy, with a dash of giddy incredulity thrown in for good measure-

And still she would not change a single thing, not a fraction of a second between then and now. Because if she hadn’t rolled away to find some sleep herself, Myka would not have sought her out like this just now, and _that_ -

Words fail Helena on how that felt. 

To be the reason for someone’s face lighting up like that, first thing in the morning and barely conscious. 

To be the person that someone turns towards, first thing in the morning and barely conscious. 

To be entrusted to watch over someone’s sleep, over someone’s utter vulnerability – oh Helena doubts that she could move a single muscle right now without Myka waking up again, but still, at the heart of the matter this is proof of how much Myka trusts her, and Helena vows to never, ever betray that. 

She knows how betrayed trust feels, after all, and she never wants to subject Myka to that. 

Never. 

She tightens her arms the tiniest bit as she promises this to herself, and Myka – sleeping or barely awake – responds by snuggling more closely into Helena’s embrace with another one of those sleepy sounds, and Helena feels her eyes sting as tears rise into them even as the sensation of Myka’s lips ghosting across her skin tugs at her insides in a very different way. 

She would do anything, _anything_ for Myka. 

So maybe part of what she can do for Myka is indulging in the arousal that Myka’s unknowing or barely knowing kiss has woken – later, though, when she can ask and Myka can reply to the question of whether what Helena would like to do is something Myka would like done to.

Helena takes a shuddering breath, trying to keep it shallow enough not to stir her girlfriend. She’s well aware that the house is full of people, even though she hasn’t heard anyone stir yet. Maybe there will be time, before everyone wakes? Maybe the door can be locked – she hasn’t looked yesterday, and she can’t look now; it’s behind her back and she can’t well turn around. 

Maybe, with a locked door-

Her heart is beating in her throat, and her breaths are coming fast, and Myka is fidgeting in her arms, and Helena tries very, very hard to calm down, but Myka is clearing her throat now, pulling away her lips at last even if Helena can now feel Myka’s eyelashes flutter on the skin of her neck.

At least the tickle, uncomfortable as it is, serves as a more… innocent focal point. 

“Hey,” Myka says softly, tightening her arm around Helena the most infinitesimal amount. “Hi.”

“Good morning,” Helena says, and presses a kiss to Myka’s forehead.

Myka hums a chuckle. “Yeah.” A few breaths pass, and then she adds, “It is.” Then she tilts her head backwards and gives Helena a gaze that tries, very hard, to be inquisitive, focused, alert, but adorably fails at all three. “You ‘kay? D’d’you sleep?”

“Yes and yes,” Helena reassures her. For some reason, she has pictured Myka as a morning person like herself, up and firing on all cylinders point five seconds after waking – or at least that’s how Helena used to be. That’s how she was, this morning, and it sits ill with her that, on some level, her body or her brain or whichever is responsible, thought that waking in the same bed as _Myka_ was cause for firing up immediately, when for months now, waking up has been a matter of dozing off and snoozing alarms and having Leena knock on her door. 

Curiously, though, now that Myka is slowly blinking herself awake, Helena feels herself getting drowsy again, unable to hold her head up or her eyes open. 

Maybe she didn’t get as much sleep as she thought she did. 

And maybe, maybe it’s alright to drift off with Myka right here. She trusts Myka so much already, she can trust her with this, surely? 

And then Myka sighs, actually grumbles, and pulls away. “Bathroom,” Helena hears her murmur, and then she’s gone. 

Helena flops to her back. Her gaze falls to the door that Myka closed behind her, and yes, the doorknob is the locking kind, but Helena shakes her head at herself – the moment has passed, surely.

When Myka comes back the bite guard is gone and she smells of mouthwash, and Helena’s conviction wavers. She quickly excuses herself – she can hardly be expected to not do Myka the same courtesy, can she? – and heads to the bathroom, swirling the astringent liquid through her mouth as she uses the toilet, blinking owlishly in the low-slanted sunlight. 

“So, what does the morning after Pete’s birthday usually look like?” she asks when she comes back and flops onto the bed next to Myka who’s sitting up lotus style and reading without her glasses on.

“People don’t really surface until like eleven or so,” Myka says. “From downstairs at least. Jane is usually up earlier, gets her coffee, goes to the living room or her office. Don’t know what Jeannie is going to do; don’t even know if they slept downstairs with everyone or up here in her old bedroom. Anyway, since Jane hasn’t said anything to the contrary, I’m working on the assumption that breakfast – or brunch, I guess – won’t be until half past eleven.” 

It is barely after eight. 

“Why, d’you wanna doze a bit more?” Myka adds with her beautiful, small, lopsided smile.

Well, here’s the opening. Helena could sit up now, reply ‘not exactly’ or something along those lines, throw a meaningful look at the lockable doorknob. She _could_ do that. 

However, the pull of the bed is strong – as in, the pull to actually doze, even after a trip to the bathroom and with her mouth tasting of mint. To maybe try and see if she can, if it would work, if she can make her body trust Myka the way her heart already does. 

In the end, that’s what wins out. “I wouldn’t mind giving it a try, actually,” she says, and Myka’s smile grows achingly tender.

“Alright, how do you want me? The usual?”

And again, it would be so easy to spin an innuendo out of this; Myka’s words are practically _begging_ to be spun. But Myka is already lying down before Helena can say yes or no, already holding open the sheets with her arms, and Helena finds that it’s even easier to scoot to her side and be embraced. 

“Won’t this be boring for you, though?” Helena asks, a last resort attempt to stave off her sleepiness. “You seem pretty solidly awake.”

“I’ll just doze with you,” Myka says with a shrug so small it barely jostles Helena. “Or do some daydreaming. Or both,” she adds with a laugh. 

Helena hums and settles more comfortably into Myka’s side. “Are you certain?” she asks with a yawn.

She feels Myka press a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep, babe. I’ll be fine.”

And just like that, Helena loses the last little bit of compulsion to fight dozing off. 

She isn’t sure if she truly does sleep. Sometimes Myka will move a little, and Helena will notice, but not enough to actually rouse her; it is the most relaxed she’s ever felt this close to someone, and the feeling fills her up and carries her away again.

And then she can feel Myka’s skin shiver under her fingers and a soft sigh move the chest she’s lying on, and she must be dreaming but oh it feels so wonderful, warm and heavy with sleep, quicksilver with desire. She feels fingers on her skin too, sliding under her shirt to find her waist, softly grazing the skin of her back with short, blunt nails that make her arch and press into the body in front of her. Lips find hers, tentative at first then growing bolder, minty and certain and _oh,_ a tongue requests entry and she lets it, welcomes it, tangles with it, not an ounce of hesitation – this is just the nicest dream, the gentlest caress, the sweetest stoking. She feels loved, held, safe; spun in threads of care that don’t confine but reassure, and it lifts her. 

Her hand finds the swell of a breast, her ears hear the intake of breath, its shaky release as the body underneath hers stiffens. There is a whispered, “Give me a moment,” and the body underneath her moves, and-

And _this is not a dream,_ and Myka is up and at the door, looking up when she hears Helena move, and Helena can see the exact moment when Myka realizes that locking the door was not the right move to make.

“I’m unlocking it,” Myka says, her voice shaky and her gaze firm, her fingers fumbling with the doorknob. “Okay? This door is open, Helena. If you need to leave, that’s okay. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” Helena flings at her. “It’s the fuck not okay, I…” She doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Those forces that were tugging at her are no longer in equilibrium; they are pulling her apart now and the only reason she’s sitting still is that she doesn’t want to bolt twice in as many days. She’s better than that, she can do this. She has to; this is ridiculous.

Myka is sitting down at the foot of the bed, on the corner that’s away from the door, leaving the way out unobstructed and yes, Helena notices. 

“Are-”

“Myka, I-”

They’ve both spoken at the same time. Myka makes a little deferring motion, and Helena takes a breath, runs a trembling hand over her hair, tries to calm her wildly beating heart. Says, “I’m sorry. I… wasn’t quite awake, and I… I shouldn’t have.” She’s painfully aware of the state of her own body, and from the looks of it, Myka doesn’t fare much differently. 

“Okay,” Myka says simply. 

“Okay? That’s all?” Part of Helena feels like spoiling for a fight, if only to channel all those forces into _some_ kind of outlet.

Myka heaves a deep breath, smiles a resigned smile. “No, not all. I could also say I get it, I understand, I accept your apology, I wish things were different so that we both could… enjoy this. But they’re not, and that’s just how it is, so what else _should_ I say? What _can_ I say?”

And just like that, all those forces coalesce into guilt, hot and bright and right behind Helena’s eyes, pressing and burning. Helena can’t meet Myka’s eyes and the understanding in them, turns her head away so wildly her neck twinges, gets up off the bed, bites down on the flesh of her thumb to keep the tears from spilling out. 

Why Myka still gives her the time of day, she has no idea. 

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and it’s so incredibly insufficient, but what else should she say, what else can she say? And then she becomes horribly aware of what her arousal is doing now that she’s upright, and the guilt burns brighter still and she heads for the door, with a short, forced “bathroom” on her lips. She remembers to snatch up her overnight bag at the very last second.

If anything is a walk of shame, this is.

She makes it to the bathroom, thankfully without running into any early riser, turns on the shower, stands under it for minutes as she stares at the tiles and tries to collect herself. Soaping herself off does nothing for her; lord but she is still horny, painfully so. She lets out a sob, then bites her hand again; this is not the moment to indulge in self-pity either. Nor anything else.

She turns the lever so that the water runs cold, and gasps as it shocks her out of her thoughts. 

Focus. Focus on getting through the day – she’s here with Leena; she’ll have to stay until Leena wants to leave, which is not going to be before breakfast. So, a few more hours with Myka – she can do that. She’ll just have to focus on other things, innocent things, things that won’t make her want to ignore the fact that this house is full of people, friendly as they are, and then suddenly remember it again and leaving Myka in a lurch like she just did. Twice in a row; Helena does not care to have this happen a third time. 

Breakfast, when it comes, will be easy; any conversation at a table that holds food can be carried by Pete commenting on said food and people teasing him. Nobody’s going to pay attention to her. 

She can do all that. 

It’s what she tells herself as she cleans herself, as she towels herself off and dresses, as she brushes her teeth and flosses to give herself more time to stop her fingers trembling. 

She’s halfway back to a normal heartrate when she returns to the bedroom. 

Myka’s sitting on the bed with the comforter drawn around her shoulders and a book in her lap again, still not wearing her glasses and looking oddly vulnerable without them. The curtains are open and Myka must have aired out the room; it smells like outside and feels cooler than it was when Helena left – though maybe that’s just a result of Helena’s cheeks still burning.

Myka looks up and smiles at Helena, first one corner of her mouth coming up, then the other. “Hey,” she calls out softly, just like that. “Better?”

Helena grimaces, and suddenly all she wants to do is curl into Myka’s side and be reassured that she’s still welcome there, that she’s forgiven even though she fucked up again. That not even her running off again and again will make Myka stop reaching out to her.

And Myka pats the bed beside her, as though she’s read Helena’s mind. 

Helena sits down at the foot end of the bed, intending to sink forward so her head lands next to Myka, but Myka shakes her head. “C’mere,” she says, holding out her arms.

It’s not like Helena can say no to Myka at the best of times; and this is patently not the best of times. 

She climbs into Myka’s lap like a child, and doesn’t protest when Myka calls her ‘baby’ as she pulls her close. She pulls her knees to her chest, makes herself small as can be to fit as much of her into Myka’s embrace as she can, and then her embarrassment and the tears finally win out. She keeps whispering that she’s sorry, again and again until her sobs make the words unintelligible. And all the while Myka’s arms hold her tight, Myka’s hands run up and down her arm and back, Myka’s voice croons gently into her ear.

It takes Helena a while to calm down; she doesn’t have musical cues to tell her that the storm should be over, and so it continues to shake her until she feels wrung out and empty, hanging limply in Myka’s arms because there’s literally nothing else she’s capable of. 

“It’s okay, baby,” Myka says, for what has to be the thousandth time.

Only this time it fires up a response. “It’s not,” Helena says thickly. “Myka, I…” She stutters to a stop. How can she tell Myka that she wants to go on but doesn’t have the guts? 

“But it is,” Myka insists. “I get it, okay? I do. Believe me, my best friend’s house is not the place I want to be doing this, either.” 

She says this so easily, as though it’s the most normal thing in the world. As though all of the ways in which Helena has messed this up can be summarized so handily. 

And then Helena blinks as the thought hits her that maybe they can. Maybe it _is_ as easy as ‘this isn’t the right place at the right time.’ She takes a surprisingly un-shaky breath. Swallows. Myka’s hands find her shoulders and squeeze a little, encouraging her to relax them. 

A laugh bubbles up, from where within her, Helena has no idea. “Alright, then,” she says, the words riding on a whoosh of relieved exhale. 

“Alright?” Myka’s tone makes it a question, a request for confirmation. 

Helena nods. “I suppose.” She leans against Myka for a moment longer, then sits up. “Well,” she sighs, “should have brought make-up after all. I probably look a right mess.”

“I’ll just tell everyone I kept you up all night with creepy stories,” Myka offers. 

Helena snorts. “As if anyone’s going to believe that.”

“Made you laugh tears?” 

“Closer,” Helena says, “but still no cigar.”

“Or,” Myka says, drawing out the word, “we’ll just hole up in here until your eyes aren’t red anymore. I mean it’s not like anyone’s waiting for us downstairs just yet.” Her eyes are twinkling as she says it, with helpfulness and calm acceptance that make it so, so easy to breathe, easier than Helena has ever breathed before. 

Helena just smiles at her. Smiles, closes her eyes, leans her forehead against Myka’s cheek until their breaths mingle. “Thank you,” she murmurs. So easy. 

-_-_-

Helena’s contribution to breakfast is pancakes, because pancakes is something she can do, because mixing the batter is simple chemistry and flipping the pancake is simple physics. Okay, yes, she has practiced the flipping, but still. Simple physics. And alright, yes, the way people ooh and aah is flattering. And maybe she needs a little bit of affirmation right now. 

Myka hovers a bit, at the beginning, but once the flipping starts, she apparently deems Helena stable enough to just let her be, and that’s gratifying too. She does beam at Helena, though, every time their eyes meet, no matter how far away she is. 

Arnaud and Jeannie are quite touchy-feely with each other; Jeannie will hug Arnaud from behind, Arnaud will feed her blueberries with his fingers, they hold hands a lot. Helena watches them, and catches Myka watching them too, and Myka tilts her head and wrinkles her brow, as if asking Helena if she wants that kind of physicality too. Helena shakes her head, ever so minutely; and quickly turns to ask Claudia about the movies they missed, because the thought of Myka hugging her from behind or eating blueberries from her fingers makes her chest constrict, and she’s not sure if it’s in a good way or in a bad way, and doesn’t really want the Lattimer breakfast table to be the place where she figures it out.

“Hey, so how about that winter coat?” Myka asks when they run into each other while clearing off the table. “Seriously, it’s gonna get cold now, and the one you bought isn’t gonna keep you warm. We could head out from here if you want.” 

“But… don’t you have to work?”

Myka shakes her head happily, making her curls fly – no ponytail today, no bun, no braid; they’re open and they’re _glorious,_ and the prospect of potentially getting to spend even more time with her gorgeous girlfriend is warming Helena much more thoroughly than any coat could. “Not today, no,” Myka says, grinning brightly. “I rarely get home before two the day after Pete’s birthday party, so it’s kind of a regular thing that I don’t work that day. Mom covers it today, because Tracy’s out too.”

“Remind me to thank her, then,” Helena says, and that’s that. Leena immediately says she’ll drive home by herself when Helena asks, and half an hour later, Helena is in the passenger seat of Myka’s car (which still feels wrong; this should be the driver’s side, but… it really doesn’t matter, not today), and they’re on their way. 

Myka takes them to the same store that she took Helena last time; browsing the floor seems almost nostalgic. Helena is nothing if not an efficient shopper, but today she takes her time – because when she’s done, this will be over, right? And she doesn’t want it to be over. So she lingers, dithers, dawdles, until Myka calls her out. 

“Didn’t you already try this one on?”

“Yes, but-” Helena’s thoughts race to find a reason. “I’m wearing only a shirt now,” she finally says, “and I’ll be wearing another layer in winter, won’t I? I want to see if the sleeves aren’t too tight.” She’s quite proud of her explanation, and promptly grabs the closest thing to a jumper she can get her fingers on; a teal green cardigan that is just plain awful – but then she has no intentions of buying it, does she; it’s just a prop. 

“Hey, if this is about, um…” Myka says, sucking on her lower lip and fiddling with the bottom corner of her own coat, “I mean, call me weirdo, but… If you don’t want this to be over once you’ve picked something, just, um… just tell me?”

Helena stares at her, coat in one hand and cardigan in the other. 

Myka blushes. “Like, we could, uh… I don’t know, see a movie, after? Or, or, or, go for a walk or something?”

Relief rushes through Helena, and she can’t help but smile. “I’d love that,” she says quietly. The day is beautiful – a true, bright, golden autumn day, if a bit on the chilly side. “We could see if the coat will keep me warm enough,” she adds. “If we take a walk.”

Myka’s answering smile is brilliant. Then it grows even wider. “You know what? We could drive up Pikes Peak if you want. I mean, I’ve been up there a million times but you haven’t, and I bet today is a five-state day. I mean. Clear enough that you can see for miles and miles. Totally a good test run for the coat.”

“Nice pitch you have there,” Helena says with a smirk – it’s not like she needs persuading; any activity that lets her enjoy Myka’s company some more is an automatic yes from her. 

Myka shrugs but grins. “Not much else about Colorado Springs to sell, I guess.”

“Oh, I hear the people are very nice.”

This makes Myka roll her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sweet talker.”

“Beg pardon? I’m but a simple nerf herder,” Helena says, eyebrows arched. “Have it on the best authority.”

Helena doesn’t try the coat on again. The prospect of driving around with Myka is endlessly more appealing than spending any more time in a changing booth. No, she heads straight to the counter to get it, as well as a five pack of warm socks while she’s at it. They pass by a rack of sunglasses on their way out, and Myka persuades her to buy a pair for their trip up the mountain. She says Helena will need them and she knows what she’s talking about; she also points out that they’re massively marked down because it’s the end of the season. Helena doesn’t mention how that last one is not really a concern, even after spending a three-digit amount on a coat (and socks), but she does recognize the sense of wearing sunglasses on their trip. The pair she ends up picking is acceptable (more than, if you listen to Myka), but they pale, _pale,_ in comparison to the tinted _aviators_ Myka pulls out of the glovebox when they return to the car. 

Myka looks ridiculously attractive in them, and wears them so nonchalantly that Helena is convinced Myka doesn’t have the first clue about just how good they look on her. Helena keeps it to herself; after this morning, she feels the balance between them is too fragile for her to bring it up and persist through Myka’s inevitable protests.

The drive up to Pikes Peak is breathtaking, both for the views and for Myka herself. This is the first longer drive Helena has taken with her, and as they go from town to suburbs to countryside to mountain, it becomes clear that Myka is a good driver. No, more than that, she’s thoroughly at ease behind the wheel, practiced and calmly competent, enough so to talk and gesture and laugh while she’s driving.

Helena wishes she could feel as calm – the road has no guardrail, and it’s just a tad nerve-wracking when Helena looks to her right and sees nothing but panorama. So she keeps her eyes on Myka, which is far more enjoyable anyway. It’s as if she’s getting a glimpse of who Myka will be as an adult, of who she’s growing into. There is not an ounce of hesitation in Myka’s movements, she knows so very clearly what she’s doing, and it’s reassuring and breathtaking in one. 

They stop along the way a few times, ostensibly to catch the view, but mostly so that Helena can unclog her ears and unclench her jaw and actually take in the panorama she’s been missing out on while looking at her girlfriend.

“I haven’t been this high up outside of a plane before,” she tells Myka at what Myka says is the second-to-last stop, at thirteen thousand feet above sea level according to the sign. “Nothing in England is anywhere near this tall.” It is markedly chillier up here than compared to down in the city, and Helena happily burrows into her new coat. 

“Really? Huh. I didn’t know that,” Myka admits. “So all those snow-capped mountains around Hogwarts…”

“Oh we have snow on mountaintops even outside of movie magic,” Helena replies. “But those mountaintops stand at closer to three or four thousand feet, not thirteen.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Myka asks, ten minutes later when they reach the summit. “Short of breath, tired, anything like that?”

Helena raises her eyebrows in surprise, but Myka’s face is serious and intent. “The tiniest bit nauseous from the drive still, but otherwise no. Why?”

“Altitude sickness,” Myka explains. “Like, the air up here has less oxygen than down there.” She points across the parking lot to where Helena can see Colorado Springs sprawl in the distance. “It usually doesn’t affect people who’ve acclimatized to the city, but one of the guys who volunteered with me at ACLU is a ranger and he says tourists coming up here suffer from hypoxia on the regular. So I figured I’d check.”

Helena’s eyebrows stay high. “Huh,” she says quietly. “I wonder how much of my feeling ill the first few weeks was because of that.”

Myka’s eyes grow round. “Jeez, yes. I hadn’t even thought about that, but yeah, you’d have had to acclimatize to Colorado Springs just as much as to being up here. Wow. Yeah. Well, at least that’s over?” she offers with a hopeful smile. 

Helena nods. “I feel nowhere near as badly now as I did then. Anything in particular to look out for?”

“Headaches, disorientation, fatigue, shortness of breath,” Myka rattles off. “If you feel anything like that, please let me know, okay? Even if it’s just the tiniest bit,” she adds with a smile. 

Helena salutes, trying to defuse Myka’s sudden and obvious worry with a bit of lightheartedness. “Promise,” she adds. 

“Or if your nausea gets worse.”

“I will.” 

Myka’s smile is grateful, and slightly abashed. “I… I just thought it was a good idea to come up here.”

“It is!” Helena insists. “It’s lovely! I just got car-sick, that’s all. One would think I was used to driving on the wrong side of the street by now, but apparently not. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy being up here. Alright?”

“Alright.” Still Myka is biting her lips. 

“Can we walk around a bit? Show me the sights?”

Myka takes a deep breath and nods. They make a slow tour of the place, and end up taking a selfie in front of the summit sign before heading into the visitors’ center, where Helena buys a (purportedly famous) donut for them to share, as well as a ridiculously expensive pint of water that Myka insists they drink right there and then, for hydration. She also contemplates getting a scarf, but Myka scowls. 

“No, no, no. _You’re_ getting a Lincoln High scarf. If you’re gonna be running around sporting colors, it better be green and yellow. If you’re seriously still cold right now, I have a blanket in the car.” She grins at Helena and pulls her away from the scarf and hats display towards a different corner of the gift shop. “So…” Myka draws out the word as they arrive, “um, I had a thought. And maybe you think it’s silly, but…” She’s blushing, and Helena softens immediately – which may or may not be helped by the fact that Myka has pushed her sunglasses up to her head as they entered the store. It’s clearly noticeable that she doesn’t have perfect vision without them. Her little uncertain squint is so endearing; Helena couldn’t resist her if she tried.

“Tell me?” she asks.

“So when my grandparents took us up here the first time, Tracy and me, they got us both teddy bears,” Myka says very quickly, and now it makes sense where she pulled Helena to – they are right in front of a shelf overflowing with plush toys. “And since you’re up here for the first time, _and_ you insisted on paying the toll fee, _and_ you have not a single stuffed toy in your bed, I thought…” she shrugs and gives Helena an utterly self-conscious grin. 

Two minutes later, Helena is the proud owner of a plush bear – a grizzly, she’s been informed. And Myka, glasses back on her nose, is beaming more brilliantly than the sun in the sky. 

“What are you going to name him?”

“Oh, I need to name him, too?” Helena teases, and Myka gives her a gentle shoulder bump as they walk back across the parking lot. “What if it’s not a he, though?”

“Can absolutely be a she-bear or a they-bear. Still needs a name. Tracy called hers Barney; mine’s Wilbur.”

“Well then.” Helena ponders the bear for a while, then says, decisively, “Callisto.” 

Myka whoops a laugh. “What, like in Xena?”

Helena shakes her head in confusion. “No? As in Ursa Major. The constellation? Which is supposedly the nymph Callisto, turned into a bear by jealous Hera and put in the sky as a constellation by Zeus?”

Myka blinks, then grins. “Whoa. Yeah, okay, alright. I mean I know Ursa Major, but not the backstory. That’s neat!” Her grin widens. “Also, FYI, extremely nerdy. Potentially even more nerdy than naming her after a Xena character, although-” she weighs her head, “jury’s still out on that one.”

“Nerdy enough for a flygirl nerf herder, though?” Helena asks.

“Absolutely.” Myka ruffles the bear’s head. “Nice to meet you, Callisto.”

Helena holds the bear in front of her face, wiggles the front paw, and gives her best quiet wookiee roar in return, just to hear Myka laugh again.

“You,” Myka says, pointing a finger at Helena and still grinning ear to ear, “do not _ever_ get to call me dork again.”

“I reserve the right to call you whatever I please,” Helena says with a little toss of her head, and adds, “darling,” in her best prim and proper RP inflection and with a sidelong glance at Myka. 

Myka laughs. “Insufferable.”

“Thank you, I’ll add that to the list too.”

Myka groans, but she’s still laughing. Even though Helena can’t really see her eyes behind the sunglasses, she can’t see any worry in Myka’s expression, only sheer enjoyment, and she takes that as a win.

“Also,” Myka says as they start to make their way down the mountain, “we need to get you caught up on Xena. Can’t claim nerd cred without having watched the Warrior Princess!”

Helena does not protest. 

The drive down is a tad less hair-raising than the trip up, and takes far too short a time – the sun is starting to set as they drive back into Colorado Springs, putting paid to Helena’s wish that today would never end. 

“Plenty of time till dinner,” Myka announces as she pulls into Mrs. Frederic’s driveway. She reaches for the glovebox and switches sunglasses to regular glasses again. “Wouldn’t want to drop you off late,” she continues as she does so. “Mrs. F might give me a Look. You know the kind.”

“Oh, I do,” Helena nods. She stares at Callisto, who has made the journey in her lap, and ponders her next move. “I had a really wonderful day,” she says finally. “Despite how it started.” She is still mortified about that, but she wants Myka to know that she’s at least trying to push past it. “Spending time with you helped. A lot.”

“Good. That’s… that’s good.” Myka’s smile is hesitantly proud. “I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

“I’ll, um… see you… tomorrow, then?”

Helena nods. She understands how slowly Myka speaks and why; she doesn’t want their conversation to end, either. 

“And if you get a headache or anything tonight,” Myka says, “it could still be hypoxia, okay? Tell Mrs. F or Leena where we were. They’ll know what to do.”

“Alright.”

“Can I…” Myka gulps audibly. “Can I kiss you goodbye?”

Helena’s eyes fly up to meet hers, and her heart is in her throat. “Yes,” she says softly and takes her sunglasses off. She can’t deny Myka Bering anything, even if a kiss goodbye is an undeniable end point.

Myka’s kiss is very brief, and followed by a serious pinching-together of Myka’s lips, probably to stave off more. “I… should probably get going,” she says, pointing her thumb towards the street. 

Helena nods. Clenches her hands around the plush bear. Doesn’t want to get out of the car. Laughs at herself, and squares her shoulders. “See you tomorrow?”

Myka sighs. “Yeah.”

“Get home safely,” Helena says, and somehow finds the strength of will to put her hand on the door handle. 

“I’ll send you a message,” Myka says with a nod and a dogged smile. “I’ll, um, stay until you’re inside, though, okay? Just… just to make sure.”

It’s beyond unnecessary; this is one of the safest neighborhoods in all of Colorado Springs. Still, though, it’s the gesture that counts, and the gesture is sweet. 

“Thank you,” Helena says, and opens the door. “Remember to write?”

Myka nods so intently her curls bop. 

Helena smiles as she looks back at her girlfriend, as she leaves the car, as she closes the car door, as she makes her way up the stairs, as she steps over the threshold, as she pushes the front door closed, as she makes her way to bed and deposits Callisto, as she takes a picture of a stuffed toy in her bed, for evidence, as she sends the picture to Myka.

And later that night, as she reads and re-reads Myka’s replies, she smiles as she falls asleep.


	22. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We have another gap coming up - one chapter today, and the next won't go up until November 21. 
> 
> HOWEVER, the chapter on the 21st will start a week in which you'll get not just one, not two, but EIGHT chapters in total (two of which will change the fic's rating, what's more). So while there is a bit of a fast now, you'll have utter gluttony coming up in Thanksgiving week. I do hope you'll forgive me.

When Myka sees Helena the next morning, she freezes, then rushes to her. “Holy crap,” she exclaims, trying to keep her voice low, “did you get _sunburned?”_

Helena twists her mouth into an expression of sheer annoyance. “Indeed I did.” 

“Oh my god, I am so sorry! I should have-”

“How could you have known when I didn’t?” Helena interrupts her. “Who even _thinks_ about getting sunburned this time of year?!”

Myka bites her lip. “I should have,” she says, feeling like an idiot. “Helena, I’m so, so sorry.”

Helena waves it away. “It’s alright. It’s not like I haven’t had a sunburn before. Mrs. Frederic had lotion for it.” She rolls her eyes and laughs. “It’ll be fine. And it’ll be a funny story one day.”

The day passes uneventfully, but every time Myka sees the pink in Helena’s cheeks, she feels guilty all over again. She just wanted to defuse the situation, make Helena’s day better than how it had started, and ended up giving her a sunburn. 

Helena, when Myka says as much over lunch break, calmly replies that all Myka _gave_ her was a teddy bear, which results in enough teasing from the rest of Team Teen Avengers to make Myka’s cheeks darker than Helena’s are. Then again, Helena is blushing too, and casting a smile at Myka that makes Myka’s knees go weak, so maybe that’s okay.

Seeing Helena sitting among the WAGs (Myka still feels weird calling them this, but everyone else does, so apparently it’s okay; even Ben said so) later that day is no less distracting than it has been the week before. It’s reassuring to know that Helena is being accepted; that they are being accepted as girlfriends, as… as a couple. 

There, Myka has said it. Even if it was only in her head. 

They’re a couple, they love each other, their friends accept them. The hiccup with… with sex (there, Myka has said that too) – they’ll figure that out, too.

So yeah, okay, Myka longs to kiss Helena again; she has tried to, um, bank the fire in the past few weeks and it has kinda worked? But now, now that they’ve kissed like _that_ again, now that she’s felt Helena’s finger graze the underside of-

But Helena isn’t ready; _obviously_ isn’t ready, and that is okay. That is important. Whatever it is, Myka can wait, or help, can do whatever Helena wants or needs. 

Sometimes when she looks at Helena it’s overwhelming how much love she feels. 

So, yeah. If Helena excitedly hugs Myka during training to congratulate her for _finally_ getting that stepover right, if Helena visibly holds herself back from adding a kiss to that hug even though nobody here would bat an eye and not even Ben has any compunctions about kissing their girlfriend anymore – Myka can do that. Can just hug her back and not be sad for a missed opportunity. 

If Helena seems almost relieved when Shaw can’t drive Tracy home because she has to pick up one of her little brothers from his own soccer practice, which means Myka can’t take Helena home without a very vocal third wheel (Tracy’s own words) in the back seat: then Myka can do that, too. Can keep her hand to herself and not put it on Helena’s thigh, can refrain from asking for a kiss goodbye even though Tracy makes it _very_ clear she thinks Myka should go for it, kissing noises and all. Myka can do all that, for the way Helena’s facial expression stays relaxed and happy all evening.

And then Tuesday afternoon comes around, and they head up to the attic, and Helena turns to Myka with a distinctly inviting smirk on her face, as if she has _waited_ to be in this place and alone, and Myka-

Myka has gotten an email that morning, and things are weird. She feels weird, that is.

It’s Yale informing her that her application has been received and what the next steps of the process are, and for some reason, it deflates her. It sits there in her mind and she should be happy, elated, full of excitement, but she isn’t; she can’t feel any of these, and she was able to push all of this away during the day, but now, here?

She can’t.

She can’t even breathe straight. 

“Myka, is something wrong?” Helena asks, smirk replaced by genuine worry.

Myka swallows harshly. And because she can’t bring any words out, she reaches for her phone, pulls up the email, shows it to Helena. 

“Oh! Congratu… lations?” Helena’s exclamation turns from celebratory back to worried again in a heartbeat. She lets the phone sink and puts her hand on Myka’s arm. “Or… not?”

Myka stumbles towards the futon that they don’t even care to fold up into a sofa anymore, sinks down on the edge, kicks off her shoes, hugs her knees. Stares unseeingly ahead of her. 

In the periphery of her vision, she sees Helena take off her own boots and sit down next to her. No, not next to her – Helena shuffles behind her, shuffles close, wraps herself around Myka in a tight embrace from the back. “Whatever it is, Myka,” she says, her voice low and reassuring in Myka’s ear, “it’s alright.”

Myka takes a shuddering breath, but she can’t move or speak to acknowledge Helena’s words, no matter how much she wants to. 

Helena leans her head against Myka’s ever so slightly, and stays right where she is.

Myka has no idea how much time passes. At some point, she moves her hands to curl them around Helena’s forearms, tilts her head slightly back and to the side to lean against Helena’s temple. 

At some point, she must have started crying. And somehow it upsets her more when she notices, because why on Earth should she be _crying;_ what does she have to damn well cry about? Her upset translates into hiccups, into angry, frustrated sobs, and now Helena starts moving, coaxes Myka into lying down and folds her into her arms in a reversal of how they usually lie. Her hand on Myka’s back synchs with Myka’s erratic breaths and gives Myka something to focus on to make those breaths come more evenly. 

Eventually, the tears stop. 

Eventually, Myka is able to say, “I don’t even know what I’m crying about.” 

She’ll be the first to admit she sounds petulant, but Helena just chuckles, a low sound that Myka can hear through the ear she has against Helena’s chest. “It happens,” Helena says simply. Myka huffs in exasperation, and Helena’s chuckle bubbles again, and her arms tighten around Myka’s shoulders. “Release valve, remember?” she says, alluding to yet another factoid from Ms. Yaeger’s extra reading material. 

Myka sits up to find herself a tissue and blow her nose. Then she says, “It just seems so illogical, to cry over that stupid email? I mean it’s not even a decision of any kind, just the receipt that they got my application.”

Helena, who has raised herself up on one elbow, shrugs. “I hate to be the one to tell you this,” she says, and this time her smirk is of the teasing kind, and when she raises a very Vulcan eyebrow, Myka is sure what she’s about to say and groans in anticipation, “but emotions are rarely logical.” 

Myka buries her face in her hand and groans again. “You had to, didn’t you.”

“Couldn’t have paid me not to,” Helena says, and even without looking, Myka can hear the grin in her words. 

“Look, can we…” Myka thinks of that initial smirk again, that glint in Helena’s eyes that should, by rights, have fired her up like anything – but right now all she feels is tired. “Can we just… snuggle?” She still doesn’t quite look at Helena, even though her hands are in her lap now. 

“Of course,” Helena says, easy as pie, and that is that. Apparently, Helena can do that too, if Myka asks. And if the relief that her reply sends rushing through Myka is anything like the relief Helena felt yesterday, Myka swears to herself to always, always give in if and when Helena asks her to do or not do something. 

And if that relief makes Myka shed a few more tears, makes Helena wrap her up in an even tighter embrace, then all things considered that is not so bad, no?

Then Myka realizes they’ve both cried in each other’s arms now. Isn’t that also some kind of milestone? It’s… different, to be comforted by Helena. Different than being soothed by her mom back when she was a kid, different than crying by herself. Different than comforting Helena in turn. Again she wonders if Helena feels the same, if she’s feeling protective of Myka right now the way Myka felt protective when she held Helena. 

Wonders if Helena feels as protected, as safe, when she’s in Myka’s arms as Myka does now. She fervently hopes so. 

If this is part of relationships, no wonder people are all for them. 

And this… this being okay with not making out because the other person needs more time, or needs snuggles more, is that… is that what people speak of when they say that relationships are hard work? Because it doesn’t feel all that hard to Myka. On the contrary, it feels natural, to want to do what’s right for Helena, to defer to her needs or wishes. To think up ways to cheer her up or reassure her, even if they end in sunburn – they also ended with a teddy bear for Helena to snuggle with, after all, and with Helena saying that she had a wonderful day. And Myka did that; Myka made that happen. 

And now Helena… Helena is making Myka’s day better. Myka sighs and burrows more snugly into Helena’s arms. 

It’s her shoulder atop Helena’s boob now, she realizes suddenly; her arm across Helena’s midriff, anxious not to touch Helena’s other boob; her boob pressed into Helena’s side. She wonders if that feels as odd to Helena as it used to feel to her, and then almost laughs at the notion that there’s a ‘used to’ in that thought. It’s the beginning of November; she’s known Helena for all of two months, and they’ve only started snuggling what, three and a half weeks ago?

And yet it feels as though they’ve known each other for far longer. How else, why else would you feel so much for someone, so profoundly, so boundlessly? 

Helena shifts underneath her, a slight wiggle of her shoulders, a gentle tug at Myka’s forearm to position it differently, then she stills again. A minute later, she shifts some more, with a half-exasperated little sound at the back of her throat. 

“You okay?” Myka asks, raising herself slightly. 

“I… no, sorry, I have to… give me a moment, please.”

Myka sits up slightly and retracts her arms. Helena fully slides out from under her with an apologetic glance, sits up, and begins…

Begins to tug at her bra. 

It takes Myka a moment to realize that it’s out of _discomfort._ “Everything alright?” she asks, turning her head away to give Helena a bit of privacy.

Helena grumbles something under her breath and drops her hands with a frustrated sound. “Sorry,” she then says to Myka, “it’s… I guess I do have to get a new bra; this one is _spectacularly_ uncomfortable lying down. I am ever so sorry.”

“No, that’s alright,” Myka says quickly, trying to stave off a blush. “Um… I, uh… I have a spare bra here, if we’re the same size. I’m a 36A.”

Helena stares at her open-mouthed, as if she has difficulties parsing Myka’s words. “You have a-” Then she rallies and shakes her head. “Of course you do. I’m a 34B, so I don’t think-”

“You could _try,”_ Myka says. “Maybe the wider band will help? If it doesn’t, fine, but maybe it does work and then you’ll feel better? Let me grab it,” she adds, scrambling to the edge of the futon. 

Helena huffs out another frustrated sigh. “I suppose.”

Myka quickly finds the bra, quickly hands it to Helena, quickly retreats behind the curtain – they’ve pulled it close the moment they came up; it’s a dreary day today and they needed to turn the light on straight away, and without the curtains closed the light would be visible from the quad and the parking lot. 

There are a few moments of silence, then a string of more grumblings. 

“Not working?” Myka hazards. 

“I think,” Helena replies, “it’s not the band size that’s the issue but rather the cup size. Still, it’s a bit better.” She gives an exasperated huff. “I _really_ thought I was bloody well _done_ growing,” she adds, “but no, everything hurts and now my stupid tits are falling out of their stupid cups.”

There’s more stuff Helena’s saying, but Myka can’t really hear it over the mental image of… did Helena say ‘tits’? Holy shit, she did, didn’t she. Oh god. 

Myka swallows; her mouth is dryer than the desert. “So…?” So what does that mean for now?

“So if I could keep your bra for now, that would be… helpful. But I still need to get a new one. Or three,” Helena sighs. She sounds quite put out. “I’m not eating any more than usual, why- _Why?!_ What do you Yankees put in your bloody _food?”_

Myka’s thoughts, meanwhile, have difficulties parsing the idea that Helena is wearing her bra right now. It’s an old-ish one; still okay to wear, but she does keep it here as a spare, a back-up, because it’s not the newest or nicest. It’s plain, heather grey, no frills, bit scuffed, but the thought of it on Helena’s skin-

“You can come back in if you want,” Helena calls out, and now she sounds amused, and Myka wonders briefly just how long she’s been standing in the dark pondering her bra on Helena’s skin. 

She clears her throat. “Yeah. Um. Coming in.”

Helena grins up at her, fully clothed, sitting on the futon. 

Myka’s eyes barely acknowledge the other girl’s expression before dropping, no, _crashing_ on the piece of fabric underneath Helena’s right hand. 

She sees black, she sees lacy, and she sees nothing else because she absolutely cannot process anything beyond ‘black’ and ‘lacy’. 

Helena bites her lips together, but she can’t hide the amusement in her eyes. She does, however, put the piece of black, lacy fabric in her bag. “Sorry,” she says, and it does sound like she means it. 

“Oh that’s fine,” Myka says, in a much higher voice than usual.

Helena’s lips twitch, but she changes the topic, relaying yet another stunt Claudia pulled in comp sci earlier today, and slowly Myka’s heartrate returns to normal. 

It’s only when she’s home, and Helena sends her a text that she’s washed the bra and will return it as soon as it’s dry that Myka’s thoughts return to ‘black’ and ‘lacy’ and the mental image of heather grey on soft white skin. 

It takes a while until she finds sleep that night. 

She’s out of sorts the next day too and on Thursday, and Jane calls her over in the library and asks what’s going on. Myka has no more of an idea than she had yesterday or Tuesday, but then Jane asks if Myka applied for Early Decision, with a shrewd look on her face. Myka nods, and Jane explains how when you reach a goal that you’ve worked long and hard for, you can end up feeling empty rather than accomplished, because the goal and working towards it gave your actions meaning and direction and now that those are gone, you’re floundering. And for something like college admission, Jane says, that goes double, because Myka _hasn’t_ accomplished her goal – getting into Yale – she’s just taken all the steps _she_ can take and it’s in someone else’s hands now, so there’s feeling helpless on top of it. She’s seen it countless times before, Jane says. Myka is not the first to feel this way, and won’t be the last.

Myka almost breaks into tears again. She doesn’t, not quite, not then. But later, when she and Helena are back in the attic and she explains what Jane explained to her, she can’t help but cry some more.

And Helena not only understands the tears and that they’re from relief more than anything, relief that Myka now knows that nothing’s wrong with her crying; she _also_ understands Myka’s subsequent need to be on her phone and look these things up – more, she sends Myka links to articles that _she_ is finding, and seriously, every time Myka thinks she couldn’t love Helena more, something like this will happen.

And _then,_ the Tuesday after _that,_ Helena falls asleep in Myka’s arms. It’s raining again; the pattering on the roof probably contributes, as does the fact they have already eaten dinner, _and_ the fact they’ve turned off the overhead light in favor of the small desk lamp next to the futon. Also Helena _has_ said that she’s slept badly the night before, and Myka _has_ teased her about taking another nap in the library office, but-

Helena is _sleeping._

No two ways about it; her body has gone boneless, her breaths are short and shallow, and Myka _knows_ how sleeping breaths sound even if the feeling of a sleeping body against hers is _really_ new. 

Myka thinks she’s never felt more tenderness than she has in this moment. Never. It’s overwhelming, overflowing – yes, there’s a tear running from her eye and no, she is not ashamed of it, not when _this_ is the reason. 

She is _in awe_ of what Helena makes her feel. 

She understands why people write novels and poems and songs about this. If she could, she would – but she can’t. If there ever was an assignment she spectacularly failed at, it was writing a love poem in junior year. How was she to know that her friendship with Pete didn’t really compare?

No, this, _this_ – Helena in her arms, trusting her so much that she allows herself to sleep – this is _right._ Maybe even inevitable. For a moment, Myka’s joy falters when she contemplates that Helena isn’t here by choice, that she was sent here against her will, for something she did that her parents punished her for. She can’t be happy about that; whatever it was, it obviously makes Helena feel bad. 

But Myka can’t also _not_ be happy that Helena is here, that they met, that _this_ is the result of them meeting. And maybe Helena will be able to see it that way too. Maybe when she feels ready to talk to Myka about why she was sent here, Myka can ask her. 

Helena twitches in her arms, a whole-body twitch, the kind you give when you drop into deep sleep. And just like it does for Myka sometimes, it wakes Helena up, Myka knows from the halting intake of breath that follows. 

“Hey,” she says, softly, gently, in an attempt to prevent any freak-out. Otherwise, she doesn’t move a muscle – maybe Helena is disoriented, maybe a tighter embrace isn’t what’s called for right now. 

“Mm…” is all that Helena brings out, as if she has difficulties articulating, or even moving her mouth in her sleepiness.

“It’s alright,” Myka says, still in the same tones. “You’re fine. You just fell asleep.”

“Myka?” Helena sounds barely awake.

“Yes, I’m here. You can go back to sleep if you want.”

“‘kay.” And Helena relaxes again, and moments later, her breaths are as even as before. 

_In awe._

Helena wakes up by herself about an hour later, stirring in Myka’s arms and rousing Myka from her own doze. “Wh’t time isit?” she asks thickly. 

Myka aligns her head and her arm so she can look at her wristwatch. “Almost eight,” she says. 

Helena hums. Then she says, “Wow.”

Myka smiles. “I do feel very honored.”

“With good reason.” Helena takes a deep breath that segues into a yawn that segues into a full-body stretch, then sits up and smacks her lips a couple of times. There’s a crease on her forehead where she slept on a wrinkle in Myka’s shirt, her cheeks are flushed with sleep, her hair is mussed, and she is _stunning._ Then she pulls a face and sticks out her tongue, and Myka still finds her adorable. “Ack,” Helena enunciates. “You don’t happen to also have a toothbrush up here, do you?”

“Of course I do,” Myka says. “Two, these days.”

“You are a _marvel.”_

Myka laughs and sits up too, and shows Helena where she keeps the toothbrushes (and the other spare clothes, and the deodorant, and the pads and tampons, and all of the things a person might need on short notice). She could easily spend the night here, shower (the gym showers are locked, but – not many people know that – the library key fits that door, too), dress in fully new clothes, and face the morning with no one the wiser. Well. Two people could, now, since Helena started coming. If one of them was alright wearing slightly outsized clothing, and possibly a wrong-sized bra.

Helena is impressed, and Myka glows with it all through the rest of the evening.

And later that night, when Myka gets home, her dad is waiting up. 

“Hey, kiddo.” He waves her over to where he’s sitting on the living room couch. 

She slowly steps into the room, lingers just within the door. “Uh, hi?”

“I, ah…” He huffs. “Sit down, will you?” He gestures at the chair next to Myka, a tad impatiently, then takes a breath as she sits down, and leans forward, forearms on knees. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” 

Myka is on instant alert, searching his face, his voice, his posture, and getting not a single clue – if anything, he looks… uncomfortable? “Okay?”

“You, uh…” He scratches the back of his neck and looks at her over his glasses. “You know the store isn’t doing so well. So your mother and I have been thinking. We… need to… try a new approach.” He expels those last four words as though they’re coated in something bitter. 

“O…kay?” Myka says slowly. He’s looking at her as though he expects more, and she adds, “What kind?” And what does it have to do with her? She doesn’t ask that, but she suspects he hears it anyway. 

He purses his lips. “We need to bring in younger customers, your mother says.”

And now Myka can see where the bitterness comes from; he’s always held out against that – the furthest he’ll go is having textbooks in stock since there’s one college and one community college nearby. Still, though: what does it have to do with her?

“So… you’re that age group,” he goes on, and Myka’s mouth almost drops open. “How do we do that?”

It’s not like she hasn’t thought of it before. It’s not like she doesn’t know what other bookstores do, the ones she… she likes better, even if she’d never say that, even if she’d never set foot into them. But for him to actually _ask her?_ She’s halfway to asking him who he is and what he’s done with her real dad, but then he shifts on the couch, and she sees that he is actually nervous, and serious, and-

Holy crap. 

First her mom and now her dad. Things are _changing,_ and Myka doesn’t like it. This is uncharted territory, right at home, right with the people she knows best. Her fingers dig into the gap between the chair cushion and the armrest, trying to find stability in all this… newness, like sinking an anchor.

“Um.” She swallows. He did ask for advice, and it’s stuff she’s thought about. She can do this. Right? “Depending on which age group you’re going for,” she says gingerly, “I don’t think you can get around science fiction and fantasy. They’re big,” she goes on quickly when his mouth puckers up again, “and not just because of Harry Potter. The genre is taking off, and we’re missing out not offering it. Plus, kids spend _a lot_ on special editions, like you wouldn’t believe.” She knows this, from listening to Pete and Steve go on about what some collectors’ items go for, and even if she can’t see Bering and Sons selling action figures, maybe her father can see his way clear to having comic books on offer? “On the lower cost end,” she goes on, “you could offer a book swap shelf. Have people bring in old books they don’t read anymore, and for every book they put on the shelf, they can take one. We still scan them, to make sure people come by the register, but they’ll be free. It’s to get people to come in here, and who knows, they might see another book they might like on the pay-for shelves, and get that too. You know?”

He nods slowly, as if he’s actually thinking about her ideas. It gives her some reassurance, enough to go on.

“For smaller kids, you could have reading afternoons. Hey parents, bring the kid in for an hour, go do some shopping or have a coffee or whatever, pick up your kid and a book while you’re here. If you want to deal with kids that young.” She stops a little, in case he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, so she continues, “And if you want to go for more students, contact the colleges, see if any professors will give you their reading lists, bundle those books in advance so that we’ll be a one-stop shop for the students at the beginning of the semester. Maybe bring professors or authors in for readings, Q&As, that kind of thing?”

“You’ve thought about this, huh.” Is that a glint of surprise in his eye? He sounds… impressed, almost. 

“When there’s no customer coming in,” she murmurs, and rubs the back of her neck, and only realizes as she does it that he did it too, not ten minutes ago. She gives herself a push. “I might not be… you know. On the sign. But I, uh, I care. About the store.”

He looks up at her, surprise now plain and evident on his face. Then his expression turns pensive. “I’ll think about it,” he says. “What you said.” His mouth works for a moment, then he adds, as if in afterthought, “Thanks, kiddo.”

Knock her over with a feather.

The moment she’s in her room, she calls Pete.

“Hey _hey_ hey, Mykes, what’s up?”

“Pete, my…” she takes a deep breath. “My dad just… I think my dad just asked for my… advice?”

“Shut the front door.” Pete sounds flabbergasted. “Did you check for alien abduction signs?”

“Pete!”

“No, seriously, though!” he protests. “Or maybe he got under the influence of an unholy object or something. All those old books; maybe one of them is possessed.”

 _“Pete,”_ she whines. “This is weirding me out, okay?”

“Alright, alright. Tell me everything, and I mean _everything._ We’ll get to the bottom of this, don’t worry, okay?”

Myka takes another deep breath, collects her thoughts, tells him the whole conversation, beginning to end. Then tells him everything _again,_ only this time he’s allowed to ask questions. 

“You’re right,” Pete says at the end, “this _is_ weird.”

“Right?!” 

“Still not ruling out aliens or possession, just FYI. But, you know, maybe…” he huffs into the phone’s mic and she winces at the crackle. “Maybe he’s legit asking your advice. I mean. It does make sense, what he was saying. It’s out of character, for sure,” he adds quickly, apparently hearing her intake of breath. “Not saying it isn’t. It totally is. But, you know, sometimes people do surprise you. Even your own parents. I mean…” he hesitates for a moment. “Okay, so don’t freak out, but the Tracy thing has made its way to me, alright? She told me, when she and Shaw picked Tarik up from wrestling practice. Told me that she came out to your parents, too. So, maybe… maybe he’s re-evaluating what he knows about his daughters? You know, Tracy forced him to see _her_ in a new light, and now he’s looking at you and thinking maybe… I don’t know. Maybe he’s reaching out?”

“Pete.” Myka releases the inhale she’s been holding throughout his speech. “Pete, this is my dad we’re talking about. He doesn’t do ‘reaching out’.”

“But maybe he does,” Pete insists. “You said he said the store isn’t doing well; maybe that’s forcing him to rethink things on all kinds of levels. Who knows.” 

Myka doesn’t reply. She’s shaking her head, and Pete obviously can’t see that, but he’s known her long enough; he knows her skepticism even when it’s silent. 

“And if he does greenlight the reading hour for small kids,” he goes on, “I will come and blow dart sedate him and check him for small round wounds in triangular patterns, see if he twitches and pukes when I shove my mom’s old crucifix in his face, stuff like that.”

Myka gives a laugh at that, but it’s a tiny bit wild. 

“Give it some time, Mykes,” Pete says. “Just wait and see what happens next. You gave him your advice, now it’s his move. He said he’d think about it, well _I_ say let him. Let him come to you. Y’got nothing to lose, right?”

“But _what_ is he going to think about, Pete? My ideas? Which ones? All of them? Just one? Wh-”

“Myka, hey. Mykes. Don’t Hulk out. Calm down. Deep breaths.” Pete’s the only one who, when he says that, she’ll listen to.

Well, maybe she’d listen to Helena too. But Helena’s not on the line, Pete is. For a moment, Myka is surprised. Then again, the conversation with her father shook the very goddamn foundations of How Things Are – and Pete is her best friend. He knows How Things Are, better than Helena does. That’s just a fact.

“Are you calmed down yet?”

Myka smiles and rolls her eyes. “I guess,” she says, with a whoosh of air. 

“Just keep breathing, alright? In with the good, out with the bad, remember? And, I don’t know, brush your hair before you go to sleep, or… hey, or read your favorite book. Whatever works, okay?”

“Okay.” She’s still smiling. She knows he hears it.

“Should I send you some memes? I can send you some memes. Rainbows and puppies and kittens and stuff.”

“I’m good, thanks,” she chuckles. She knows the memes he’s talking about, and yeah, no, she’s good.

“If you say so. Still, though, if you need one, I’m your man, you know that, right?”

“You’re my go-to,” she reassures him. “Thanks, Pete.”

“Sure thing. Hey, so Tracy-”

She quickly interrupts him; she does _not_ want to talk about Tracy right now. “Good night, Pete.”

He laughs. “Okay, good night, sleep tight, don’t let the aliens abduct your dad again.”

She hangs up on him, groaning and laughing and feeling a lot more stable than when she called.


	23. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One chapter today; two more coming up on the 24th, which will both be explicit.

“Hey,” Myka greets Helena a few days later, calling across the parking lot to where Helena and Leena are just getting out of Leena’s car. “Helena, you got a moment?”

Leena grins at them and waves as she leaves; Helena walks over to Myka. “Good morning,” she offers with a smile. Myka is wearing an actual bobble hat, hand-knitted by the looks of it, and her curls are spilling out like a riot, and it is ridiculously cute. Blessings be upon cold weather, although truth to tell Helena was not prepared for just how cold it can get here, so blessings be upon Myka and Jean Bering and their insistence that Helena buy a warm coat, too. 

Helena is not wearing a hat, though. She doesn’t have the head for it, her mother always said, and that has stuck with her. 

“Hey, um…” Myka begins, hands shoved deep into her own coat pockets. “My, um… my mom… hang on, let me start from the beginning.” She huffs and rolls her eyes at herself, then turns and points towards the school entrance. “Walk and talk? I don’t want you to get cold.”

“If it’s good enough for starship captains and their commanders, it’s good enough for me,” Helena says with a nod.

Myka grins at her and they start out. “So, Dad is taking Tracy to visit Boulder campus today, for some reason.” She looks more confused than the occasion warrants, Helena thinks, but then Warren Bering doing this with his younger daughter might be just as out of the ordinary as him asking his older daughter for business advice, for all Helena knows, so she keeps her silence. “They’ll be gone all day, and Mom said that she and me could do a mother-daughter thing _next_ Friday, and _then_ she asked if I wanted to ask you along too.” 

The words come out rushed, and Helena takes a moment to parse them. They hit her in the gut with the force of photon torpedoes. “But if it’s a mother-daughter thing-” she protests, and color flushes into Myka’s cheeks. 

“She _specifically_ said it was open to you, too, if you wanted.”

Helena blinks. She doesn’t realize she’s stopped walking until Myka has to stop and return to her. “She…” She quickly presses her lips together, blinks her eyes a few times. She can’t go crying right before class. 

“She wants to go up to Denver, do fun stuff like a mani-pedi – her words, not mine – and take us out for dinner,” Myka lists, with a hopeful look on her face. “And she added that you, and me, should _not_ worry about how much that would cost,” she adds, and Helena laughs self-consciously because that _would_ have been her next argument. “She says she can afford it and _wants_ to do all that with us.”

Helena bites her lips – they’re drying out in the cold, and she reminds herself to get chapstick one of these days. Maybe on a mall trip with Myka and her mother? “Well then,” she exhales. She gives Myka a hesitant smile. “If it’s alright with you?”

The way Myka beams says yes quite eloquently.

And so a week later, Helena bundles into Myka’s car after school, and there’s no Tracy to comment when they kiss at every red light. They pull into the alley behind the bookstore, meet Myka’s mother, switch cars, and then head north. 

Jean Bering, who insisted that Helena sit shotgun, peppers her with questions about driving in the UK, how sizes and distances compare, if England has shopping malls, the lot. Helena can tell, though, that Myka’s mother is genuinely curious instead of patronizing; she simply does not know and wants to learn, so Helena answers the questions with good humor. Yes, she’s slowly getting used to driving on the wrong side, yes, England really is that small – Helena professes that she would never have thought to drive for an hour just to have a fun evening out – yes, there are shopping malls where she comes from. 

They drive by a sign for a pet store as they leave the highway (or interstate or whatever it’s called), and Mrs. Bering asks if Helena has a pet, and the simple answer is no, but the longer answer is that Helena adored Brutus, Aunt Tee’s small white mutt, named that way just to confuse everyone who, with that name, expected a large purebred to come when called. And before Helena knows it, she has told Mrs. Bering halfway all about Brutus and some things about Aunt Tee too, and she stops herself before she tears up, and then the car pulls into the parking lot and she’s saved.

Brutus died two weeks after Aunt Tee, and everyone said it was of a broken heart. And Helena knew exactly what they meant, and wondered why she was still alive when her heart was so clearly broken, too. 

She doesn’t tell Mrs. Bering that. 

Cold though it is, they go for ice cream. Swallowing the sweet coldness helps. The way Myka wordlessly sits right up close helps too. 

Right opposite the ice cream parlor is a lingerie store, and Helena eyes it – she hasn’t yet managed to buy new bras. Not having a car, plus not really trusting in her ability to stay on the ‘right’ side of the road even if she borrowed Leena’s car, means that she has to ask someone to take her wherever she wants to go, and it doesn’t sit quite right to do so for bra shopping. 

Mrs. Bering, unfortunately, notices. “Thinking of going in?” she asks, all friendly helpfulness. 

Helena blushes furiously. It’s an opportunity, but of all the people to potentially accompany her, her girlfriend’s mother is _not_ the one she’d have chosen. Myka looks ill at ease, too. However. Helena _really_ needs a new bra. So she squares her shoulders, takes a breath, bites the bullet: nods. 

She’s never been bra-shopping with her own mother; not really. Yes, Sarah Wells has taken her daughter to be fitted, once. It had been one instruction to the shop’s assistant, of “no lace, for God’s sake; she’s thirteen,” and then Helena’s mother had left, only returning to pay half an hour later. 

Jean Bering is… a bit overbearing, perhaps, but again Helena can tell she means well, and that makes all the difference. Mrs. Bering insists that Helena be measured in the back room, instead of letting her simply grab a couple of various-sized bras off the shelves, and also insists on looking at labels for fabrics used and laundry instructions. 

“You can machine-wash this one, isn’t that nice?”

“This much cotton will feel nice on your skin, dear, but it’ll probably wear out sooner than the others. Oh! Do you have any allergies or sensitivities, sweetheart?”

“Goodness, this one is expensive!”

Helena isn’t sure if Mrs. Bering’s presence is helpful for Myka or the opposite; she herself doesn’t leave the changing booth, but simply calls out her findings through the curtain – this one fits, that one pinches, this one has a seam in an odd place, that one’s lace itches – and at some point that stops being weird, seeing as it beats actually _leaving_ the booth and presenting her bra-clad upper body not just to her girlfriend (which wouldn’t be a problem whatsoever; she’s sure Myka would blush ever so fetchingly), but to _her girlfriend’s mother._ It also means she doesn’t really see Myka’s face as she calls out details about the bras she’s trying on, and that can only be a good thing, really. 

The whole experience is ever so slightly nerve-wracking, and halfway through, when her stomach tightens in a familiar clench, Helena wonders if eating ice cream beforehand was such a good idea. But what’s done is done. 

She just hopes that her breasts are done growing after this. Aches in her back and legs are _kind of_ bearable in the hopes that she might catch up to Myka’s height in one final growth spurt; that would be nice. But she could really do without her breasts growing larger; she gets ogled enough as it is. Alright, they didn’t just get her ogled, they also got her out of ballet class – there’s an upside and a downside to everything, right? She was happy with her tits as they were, though; why are they growing again? 

She hopes that these bras (C-cups, for crying out loud!) will be the right size for years to come; they’re certainly expensive enough.

After Helena is done paying, they discover that the nail salon Myka’s mother remembers is gone, so no mani-pedi. There’s a reflexology place in another corner of the mall, though, and Mrs. Bering pulls them there instead. 

Five minutes later, Helena is ready to forgive Myka’s mother all she’s ever done and all she ever might do; getting her feet massaged is heaven, bliss, rapture. She bites back about ninety percent of the happy moans she wants to utter, mindful of the company, but oh, this is _amazing._ Over in twenty minutes, too, which is the height of injustice, but then Mrs. Bering is paying for this and Bering and Sons isn’t doing well, so even those twenty minutes are pushing Helena’s bad conscience buttons, just not quite as effectively as the reflexologist pushes her fingers into Helena’s feet. 

And _then_ Mrs. Bering insists on taking them to dinner in an actual sit-down restaurant, and Helena doesn’t need to take cues from Myka to feel even more uncomfortable. She orders the second-cheapest item on the menu, and despite Mrs. Bering’ s protests, Myka orders the cheapest. They both refuse dessert on the basis of having had ice cream already. 

Helena has kept a rough tally of what Mrs. Bering has spent on them today, and it’s less than a quarter of Helena’s monthly allowance. And that thought isn’t an easy thought – that Myka’s mother spending this amount of money on them makes Myka as uneasy as it does when Helena could spring for this kind of trip every weekend and be okay, _and_ that this is what Helena’s parents consider pocket money for her. 

If Helena could give all her money to the Berings, she would, just to smoothen the expression on both Myka’s and her mother’s faces. But you can’t really do that either, can you. So instead Helena vows to herself that if she ever needs any kind of book, she’ll buy it at Bering and Sons. If that’s all she can do, she will. 

They talk some more about Helena driving on their way back; this time Myka’s at the wheel to relieve her mother. Helena has assumed she would be okay to drive on her English license, but Myka’s mother tells her that that is only the case for a short term vacation, not a long term stay like hers. Mrs. Bering doesn’t know more details than that, but Helena reassures her she can look it up when she gets home. 

Myka suggests looking into driver’s ed, and Helena knows that when Myka suggests a thing like that, she, Myka, will actually do the looking up herself and send all she’s found to Helena. It’s both sweet and somewhat exasperating – but mostly sweet. They drop Helena off at Mrs. Frederic’s house and sure enough, about twenty minutes later, messages and links start pinging on Helena’s phone. 

The first one, though, isn’t about driving licenses at all, but the picture of the three of them that Myka’s mother had her reflexologist take at the salon. 

A mother-daughter thing, and Jean Bering had wanted Helena to come. Helena doesn’t even know if it’s because Mrs. Bering has seen snatches of the shambles of Helena’s relationship with her parents, or because Helena is Myka’s girlfriend – but the gesture is not lost on her, and neither is this picture. She pulls it into the ‘to print’ folder on her phone, and into the password-protected one that has the selfies she’s taken with Myka. Then she looks around her room – not quite as bare as it was, but also still not quite imbued with personality – and resolves that this room needs more books on the shelves, and quick. 

So the next morning, a Saturday, she asks Leena if Leena would mind driving her over to a certain bookstore she knows. 

Myka is deep in conversation with her father when Helena goes through to the second room, and the smile that breaks over Myka’s face when she looks up and sees who this customer is – it’s radiant. “Hi!”

“Hello,” Helena says, smiling back with a little more restraint because she’s also smiling at Warren Bering. “I was hoping to buy a few books or, if you don’t stock them, maybe ordering them through you?” She does know Bering and Sons doesn’t stock science fiction yet, but every bookstore will order any book for you, right?

“Sure,” Myka says immediately. “Dad, can we do this later?” She waves her hand at the handwritten list they’ve both been pouring over. 

“Yes, yes, yes, go ahead. I’ll be in the back with this.”

Myka’s grin is nothing short of a squee as her father picks up the piece of paper and retreats to his office. Then she puts on her serious business face and lets her fingers hover over the computer keyboard. “So! Which books did you have in mind?”

Helena goes through her list, and Myka beams and nods at every title, suggests a few of her own that aren’t on it yet. And no, the store doesn’t stock any of them, but, Myka says, they’re easy enough to order, now that – and here her voice turns just a smidgeon sarcastic – the store uses a computerized inventory and ordering system. 

“Jeez,” Myka mutters once she’s entered all the titles. “Helena, that’s, like, over a hundred and fifty dollars. Are you…” she swallows. “Is that okay? I mean you just-” she doesn’t finish the sentence, but Helena knows what she means anyway; Myka was standing next to her at the lingerie store’s checkout yesterday, and at the department store when Helena bought the coat two weeks ago. She knows how much money Helena has spent on those two occasions just as she knows how much Helena is about to spend now. 

Helena simply nods. “If it helps, I can tell you what percentage of my allowance this comes to,” she offers. 

Myka blinks several times, looking at the credit card Helena is holding out. “I… don’t think I wanna know, actually,” she says, with a slightly squeamish expression. “Really, though, are you sure you want all these?”

 _“Yes,”_ Helena says firmly. “I want to have something to read that’s not textbooks, and having my books shipped from the UK would cost money, too – _and_ it would mean I’d have to ask either my father or my mother to… well. To go into my room, for starters.” She pulls a face. “And to be quite honest, that’s the last thing I want. And I’m also pretty certain they wouldn’t be exactly overjoyed being asked that time-consuming of a favor. You know, find the books, pack them, go to the post office, all that.”

Myka’s mouth is working. “I’m sorry,” she says finally, in a low, sad voice. “That is really shitty of them, that they wouldn’t do that for you.”

Helena shrugs. She’s used to it, after all. And, luckily, it’s a problem that can be fixed simply by throwing money at it; money that she has. 

Myka nods, as though she’s heard all that. “Do you want them sent here or to Mrs. Frederic’s house?”

“Here, please,” Helena says after only a moment’s cogitation. She smiles. “I’ll just have to come pick them up, won’t I? Maybe once I have my Colorado license.” She hasn’t signed up for drivers’ ed yet, but she knows she should; at this point it’s more of a ‘where’ and not an ‘if’ anymore.

“Or I’ll have to come bring them to you,” Myka replies, in the same conspiratorial tone of voice, and with a similarly eager smile. 

They smile at each other for a moment more, then Myka pulls her attention back to the computer, to finalize the order and swipe Helena’s card. 

The door to the back hallway opens, and Jean Bering’s face breaks into a smile when she sees Helena – not quite as bright as her daughter’s has been, but happy enough. “Oh, hi Helena! Good to see you again so soon!”

“Thank you,” Helena replies, and gives a small wave. 

Mrs. Bering turns to Myka. “Sweetheart, I’m just making a quick trip to the store; turns out we’re out of rotisserie chicken and a few other things. Helena, will you join us for lunch? These two,” she nods to Myka and the office door, “eat in shifts; you could keep Myka company. It’s chicken noodle soup today – Tracy isn’t feeling well, poor thing.”

Helena is startled – she hadn’t planned on having lunch at the Berings’. Then again, she hadn’t even planned on how to get home again, beyond a vague idea to call a cab. She doesn’t have any plans for the day, that much is certain.

“You could also come shopping with me,” Mrs. Bering offers. “I’m going to Sam’s Club; you did say you wanted to see one of those places up close, right? With the big bulk packages? Well, that’s Sam’s Club for you.” Her smile, so very like her daughter’s, is hard to say no to, especially when said daughter is standing beside her and nodding encouragingly. 

“Even I like going to Sam’s Club,” Myka adds. 

“Righty-ho, then,” Helena says, and five minutes later she’s back in the passenger seat of Mrs. Bering’s car.

“So!” Mrs. Bering says briskly as they set out. “How are you, dear?” The way she sounds makes it clear it’s not just a nicety; once again, she’s genuinely interested. 

“I- I’m alright. Thank you. And you?” 

“Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine. Look, I couldn’t help noticing yesterday how you looked when you spoke of your auntie and her little dog. You miss them both, don’t you?” When Helena, stunned, doesn’t reply, Mrs. Bering goes on, “I don’t mean to pry, sweetheart. I just… when I came here to marry Warren, I didn’t know anyone but him. My family’s from Minnesota, up near the Canadian border. And I know that you’ve found friends in school – but you don’t have family here, right? So. If you ever need someone… ‘mom-adjacent’, I guess Tracy would say, someone you can come and ask the mom kind of questions of, someone to cook you chicken noodle soup when you’re feeling bad, I – what was the phrase in that movie? I volunteer!”

It’s… it’s a bit cheesy, and it’s a bit forced, and it is one hundred percent genuine, and it makes Helena feel like crying. She bites the inside of her cheek instead, and just presses out a “Thank you” instead.

“Of course, sweetheart!” Mrs. Bering is at the very least insightful enough not to press the matter. Instead she asks if chicken noodle soup is the remedy of choice in England as well, and the conversation proceeds from there. 

Even the shopping carts at Sam’s Club are enormous. The store itself boggles the mind. Yes, apparently you _can_ shop like that in the US. Goodness. Helena shoots Leena a quick text asking if there are any baking or cooking ingredients she can get for her in bulk, seeing as they’re walking past twenty-five pound bags of flour and ten-pound bags of sugar, just as a thank you for Leena’s ride this morning. Leena declines, though, saying she’s all stocked. 

Mrs. Bering chats about how up in Minnesota, her family used to make one big shopping trip every two weeks, to a similar store, and would go through the aisles with two carts per person and a car that sat noticeably heavier on the road on the return trip. “The closest store was fifty miles away, roundabout,” she adds.

Helena blinks. “I don’t know if you could drive fifty miles anywhere in the UK and not run into another major _town,_ much less a supermarket.”

“Oh, we had a supermarket in town,” Mrs. Bering is quick to reply, “but their prices were much higher and we were a family with six children, so every penny saved was valuable, even considering the cost of gas.”

Six! Helena bites her tongue not to exclaim in surprise, but apparently Mrs. Bering has been waiting for her reaction.

“Polish Catholic,” Mrs. Bering explains with a laugh. “It’s why I get along with Jane so well. Jane Lattimer? Irish Catholic, and I think she is one of seven. Sometimes you need someone who’s gone through the same thing to commiserate, don’t you?”

Wow. Again, Helena doesn’t say it out loud, and again Mrs. Bering seems to hear anyway. 

“Anyway,” Myka’s mother goes on, “it sure taught me budgeting, you know?” She wiggles her phone, indicating the app with which she’s been keeping track of the sum total of what’s in her basket. “Now Myka tells me your folks are quite well-off, and that’s lovely, of course. But budgeting always helps, wouldn’t you say?”

“Of course,” Helena replies; what else can she say? Then something occurs to her. “Is it really alright, my staying for lunch?” she asks. “If it’s a burden-”

“Oh nonsense, sweetheart, it’s just soup. Don’t you worry about it, alright?”

Helena nods – again, what else can she do? 

When she walks back into the store, Myka’s father gives her a tilted-head, narrowed-eyes look that’s very recognizable. “My wife tells me she’s invited you for Thanksgiving, isn’t that right? Now, Myka here,” he indicates his daughter who’s standing next to him and, at his words, looks at him like a startled deer, “had the idea to introduce our new strategy as a Black Friday event. Frankly, I have no idea if that’s gonna fly, but if it does – Myka said you know your way around the store by now; how does staying over and helping out sound to you? Just in case we’re as inundated as my daughter seems to expect we’ll be.”

“Dad!” Myka protests. “You can’t just-” 

“Of course,” Helena says without any kind of hesitation. “I’ll be happy to help.” She can’t put money into anyone’s account, no, but she _can_ order books here instead of through big online retailers, and she _can_ offer her time and hands. And if it means she gets to spend more time around Myka, around books, well. That’s a triple win right there, isn’t it?

“Excellent,” Mr. Bering says with a sharp nod. “We’re opening the store at midnight, trying to recreate that thing from the Potter books. People arriving in literary costumes will get a free tote bag – gotta order those, I keep forgetting. So, probably best if you stay the night, eh? Shaw is staying too. Exciting, eh, kiddo?” he asks Myka, and again, like his wife, it’s a bit forced – but for what it’s worth, it does seem genuine too, to Helena. “Big ol’ sleepover? Gotta ask Jane for a few spare mattresses.” He laughs. Myka gives a weak grin. Helena takes out her phone to put in a reminder to talk this over with Mrs. Frederic, see if she has any objection. 

In the end, it’s decided that Helena and Shaw will arrive around noon on Thanksgiving Day, spend the day with the Berings, help out for a few hours in the store – or less, if no one comes, as Mr. Bering keeps insisting – spend the rest of the night in their respective girlfriends’ bedrooms (not that Mr. Bering knows about Myka and Helena. On the other hand, maybe he should?), and spend the rest of Friday however they want. 

Myka and Helena spend the rest of that day creating flyers and posters for the event to hang up in the neighborhood, as well as posts to put on social media – yes, Bering and Sons has joined the major networks now, Myka relays to Helena in a voice tinged with incredulity. “We even have followers already,” she adds proudly, and Helena takes out her phone again to add the bookstore on all the networks she’s on. A few moments later, Myka yelps. “W- you- but-” she splutters, and then grins and shakes her head. “You don’t have to do all this, you know.”

“On the contrary,” Helena says, “I do believe I do. I _also_ believe Bering and Sons should do a follower competition, give away a few gift cards among the first one hundred followers or something. Up the amount on the card if the store makes it to two hundred followers by Thanksgiving, that kind of thing.” 

“Yeah! Yeah, we should do that! Man, we’ll kick this bookstore into the century of the fruit bat yet.”

“Kicking and screaming, if need be,” Helena agrees.

“God, I love that you got that reference, you nerd.” 

Helena raises an eyebrow. “Listen, the only reason I have ordered zero Pratchett books is that you can’t just order _one._ I want to order at least a dozen of them, and I really should wait until next month to do that.”

Myka’s eyes are shining with… with love. Helena can see it and can name it. But Myka doesn’t say it, and for the first time, Helena isn’t unrestrictedly glad about it. For the first time, she finds herself wishing, even just a little, that Myka would say the words.


	24. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the following are both explicit. I'll add, just in case you were wondering, that the age of consent in Colorado is 17, and in the UK 16. This is very much a consensual, voluntary encounter between two 17-year-old girls. 
> 
> Still, if that's not your thing, no worries, simply tune in again on Friday/with Chapter 26. The upcoming chapters will mention sex as having taken place or taking place still, but not by far as explicitly as these two.

Sometimes Myka feels like the world is spinning a bit too fast these days. 

She has a girlfriend. 

Her father has asked for her advice. 

She has comforted her own mother. 

Her sister has a girlfriend. 

Thank _god_ Pete is still the same as always; Myka doesn’t think she could take it if he suddenly changed too. 

Okay, Mom is still a bit overbearing most of the time (only now it’s directed at Helena too), and Dad is still abrasive most of the time, and Tracy is still annoying most of the time, but nevertheless: these events have happened, they’re burned into Myka’s memory and probably would be even if that memory wasn’t eidetic.

At least Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Helena in the attic, are still the same. They have blankets up here now, actual sheets and actual blankets, because the place is getting chilly and Helena hasn’t figured out how to repair the space heater yet. Nevertheless, the attic is a refuge for both of them come rain or shine, laughing, chatting, holding each other close when the world’s spinning speed is threatening to overwhelm them.

But even that, though…

Okay, so-

So Myka is… horny. There. She said it. And their kissing sessions are getting increasingly heated, which on the one hand is a good thing, but on the other means that when they stop (and, obviously, they have to stop at some point, because they literally don’t have all night, and the thought of going all the way, and then going home? Is incredibly weird), it is _ridiculous_ how uncomfortable being this aroused feels.

Christ. 

Tonight, though, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, is… different. 

Helena is kissing Myka like she needs it to live, more than air or anything else. And yes, hands have roamed before, have found skin, have even found the fabric of bras, but today, all of Helena’s usual hesitancy is gone, clear gone, as if it never existed. Her hands are scalding on Myka’s skin, pushing up her sweater and her t-shirt to gain access-

And then she stops, and sits up gasping for air, and Myka is trying to brace herself for the inevitable, for Helena pulling back and retreating and saying they should better stop, but when Helena’s words come, they make Myka’s thoughts fuse clean together. 

“Can we go on? Would that be okay? Please, Myka, I…”

For a moment, Myka just stares at her. At lips that look fuller even as they move without words, at eyes that look hungry even as they flit here and there. And then her thoughts catch up with her. “Are-” she has to swallow. “Are you sure?”

Helena breathes out a laugh. “Sure? No,” she says, and it sounds harsh, annoyed at herself. “Not as in ‘one hundred percent positive’. But I want to. I _want_ to. I want to _try,_ at least.” She licks her lip, a quick dart of a pink tongue along a slightly chapped lower lip. When her eyes finally meet Myka’s, they’re almost firm. Firm enough, at any rate, for Myka to see that she means it. 

“Okay.” Again, Myka swallows. “Okay, just… just don’t push yourself too hard, okay? I don’t-” 

“I _know,”_ Helena says. Then, in gentler tones and with her fingers curling around Myka’s hands. “Myka, I know. And I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate you looking out for me. But-” one of her hands drops away, comes up, runs through raven hair, “Lord, I _have_ to. Or I swear I’ll… I’ll fly apart.” Those last words are trembling, and much lower than usual, and boy do they wreak havoc on Myka’s best intentions. 

“What do you want me to do?” is all Myka can ask.

And apparently, this simple question is not what Helena has expected. It’s she who stares at Myka now, mouth hanging open, flushed lips trembling. Again, she licks them. Swallows. Reaches for Myka’s hands and places them at her waist where they rest on the hem of her sweater – only for a moment, though, because then she lets go, grabs that hem, and with one quick, angular movement, the sweater comes off, as does the shirt underneath.

Myka thinks it’s reminiscent of someone pulling off a bandaid. Quick, decisive, get it over with.

Then her eyes fall on-

Dark green lace. 

That’s all she sees before they fly up again, unwilling to stare. 

And Helena says, “Please. Look. Please,” and what can Myka do other than what she’s being asked to do?

There’s a small triangle of skin below Helena’s neck that’s slightly tanned: remnant of the sunburn. There’s the movement of short, shallow breaths, of a pulse beating fast. Tendons stand out one moment, recede the next as Helena swallows; Myka follows suit – her mouth is dry and her thoughts a-fizz. 

The bra has a double strap. They’re not lacy, those straps, just satiny, and the gap between the two straps on the left shoulder is smaller than the gap between the two on the right. 

Below them-

Below them, the lace starts, and makes its way inwards, in a curve, past a few freckles, to a… a valley. 

Helena’s boobs are large enough to be pressed together and form a valley. 

Myka knows her own aren’t; the thought shoots across her mind like a meteorite across the firmament. 

She realizes her mouth is hanging open, and still dry, and she closes it and licks her lips, and Helena _gasps._

“Please,” Helena says, “could you… please would you touch them?”

Her words go straight through to Myka’s arm and lift it, extend a hand, extend a finger to hover over where lace meets skin. Another whispered “please” initiates contact, another gasp presses Myka’s palm against satiny fabric, cups, squeezes ever so slightly. She’s done this before, once, but that was underneath a t-shirt, not in plain sight, and-

“Fuck,” trembles out of Helena’s mouth, and Myka can’t help it-

“Is that,” she asks, “a reaction or a request?” Wobbly though her voice is, she thinks this is the smoothest she’s ever been, calling back to their very first kiss like that, but Helena _glares_ at her out of a flushed face.

“Myka Bering, I swear to-” 

Myka leans forward and kisses the nearest bit of Helena’s skin – her clavicle, as it turns out – and whatever Helena wanted to swear to whatever deity is lost in a rush of exhalation.

Helena falls back onto the futon, pulls Myka down with her, tugs at Myka’s sweater, “Take it off, please, I want to feel your skin,” and Myka sits – no, she _straddles_ – and does as she is bidden, cursing her fumbling fingers, her arms that seem to have forgotten how to do this simple task. When sweater and t-shirt are gone and Myka can see again, Helena’s eyes are dark in the dim light of the little reading lamp, and her hands bold as they reach up and, at the last moment, hesitant before they make contact. “May I?”

“Yes,” Myka says, so quickly that her tongue almost stumbles over the one simple syllable. “Yes. Please.”

Helena does the exact same thing that Myka did, running her finger along the upper curve of Myka’s bra, and Myka silently begs forgiveness for having been so cruel – yes, the touch is there, but it is too little, too feathery, it almost tickles, she almost shies back. She can’t help the shiver, and Helena notices, sees how Myka’s skin rises into gooseflesh. “Bad?” Helena asks, withdrawing her finger, and that makes it _worse_ somehow.

Myka shakes her head wordlessly, grabs Helena’s hand, puts it palm first atop her boob. 

“Ah,” Helena replies. “Too ticklish?” Myka nods, and so does Helena. “Don’t worry,” Helena whispers, “it won’t happen again.” And as if in reassurance, her palm squeezes, and Myka-

Myka’s mouth falls open, and breath rushes out. “Holy-” she begins, but has no idea how to finish that. 

And then she doesn’t have to, because Helena rushes up and kisses her, more hungrily than she’s ever kissed Myka before, and her lacy, satiny bra touches Myka’s midriff, and Myka’s far humbler bra – and the painfully stiff nipples within it – touch Helena’s chest, and god yes, Helena is pressing into Myka and her shoulders move-

Myka opens her eyes to see Helena’s arms at work behind Helena’s back, and a moment later, dark green satin falls away and-

Myka sucks in a breath as Helena’s nipples touch the skin of her stomach but it pales in comparison to the unfettered _groan_ that leaves Helena’s mouth at the contact (‘feel your skin,’ that’s what she meant, yes?), as Helena presses herself against Myka and kisses along the curve of her jaw, as – god – she licks a trail down Myka’s neck. As she kisses where her finger tickled, firm, wet, openmouthed kisses along the edge of fabric Myka _needs gone, now._

Her fingers reach behind herself and fumble on the clasp for a moment, then scrabble at the straps, and then, oh then, her bra falls between them to be forgotten and-

And her nipple – the left one – touches someone else’s skin.

And then someone else’s lips.

And then the insides of someone else’s mouth as it closes around nipple, aureole, flesh.

It feels nothing like anything she’s ever felt, not even like when Helena kisses her on the mouth, and it… God, it feels _divine._

Myka can barely hold up her own head; it lolls as Helena works whatever magic she does until-

Myka yelps – softly, but Helena stops at once. 

“Too much?”

Myka tries to catch her breath. It takes a while before she can answer, then, “Yes,” she says, still more of a gasp than a word. 

“I’m sorry,” Helena says immediately. “No more teeth then, I promise.”

“Teeth?!” It’s been hard enough to catalogue the sensations, much less wonder what caused them. But _teeth?_

“Myka, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“No,” Myka says, laughing at her own breathlessness. “No, don’t worry. It was just that last moment, and you couldn’t have known, because I didn’t know.”

Helena’s hands are on Myka’s legs now, resting lightly on either thigh, and her face is full of misgivings as she looks up. “Are you sure?”

 _“Yes,”_ Myka says, with as much conviction as she’s able to pack into one syllable. “Please let’s not stop.”

When Helena still looks uncertain, Myka takes her face into both hands and tilts it up to press a kiss not quite on her mouth, but a little off to the side. 

“Please,” she repeats, and her voice is lower than it has ever been, and either that or the word do the trick. 

Helena’s mouth falls onto hers like Myka is water after the desert. She pulls Myka down with her while they kiss, leaving Myka to pull the sheets over the two of them. There’s one electrifying moment when nipple touches nipple – almost too quick for Myka to recognize, and then she can’t think about anything else, and when Helena stops for air, when Helena pushes them apart slightly, when Helena looks at her with sultry eyes and says “Kiss me,” that’s where Myka’s thoughts go and that’s where she follows, ignoring jaw and neck in favor of breast, in favor of wrapping her own mouth and lips around the hardened bud and finding all the ways she can make Helena’s breath stutter or her back arch.

And then Helena stops her. There’s an unmistakable push, a slightly more ambiguous sound, but together they transport a clear message, and Myka pushes herself up on her arms. “Too much?”

Helena nods her head tersely, and it’s then that Myka notices:

Helena’s breaths are no longer shuddering and loose, but sharp and shallow.

Helena’s body is tense; her jaw is _knotted_ with tightness. 

Helena’s brow is furrowed. 

Too much, yes. 

And then Helena opens her mouth, and Myka can see how much she needs to fight the tension in her chin just to do that, and she says, “But I don’t want to stop. Just… just give me a moment.”

“Helena!” Myka makes as if to slide off, but Helena’s hands land firmly on her still jeans-clad thighs and stop her. Myka turns to pleading. “Helena, please. I don’t want you to push yourself too hard, okay? If you need to stop, we’ll stop. I would never-”

“I _know,”_ Helena cuts in. “I know,” she repeats far more softly. Her hand comes up, one finger trailing along Myka’s cheek. “I don’t need to stop entirely. I was just… in my head too much.”

“O…kay?” Myka isn’t sure what can be done about that. She pulls the sheets back up from where they’ve slid down, creates a little tent around the two of them so they won’t be cold. “Okay, so… so what do we do?”

Helena bites her lips together as she thinks. Slowly, a blush creeps into her cheeks. Then she asks, “What do you want to do?”

“Huh?” Myka shakes her head. “Whatever you ne-”

Helena’s finger on her lips stops her. “Let me ask you differently,” Helena says, in the huskiest voice Myka has ever heard from her. “Would you like to take this finger into your mouth?”

Myka blinks. “If that’s what you-”

The finger taps once, twice, and Myka falls silent again. “Do _you,”_ Helena asks, emphasizing the pronoun, “want to take this finger into your mouth? Either way is fine, I just want to know what _you want to do.”_

Myka’s thoughts are running amok – what does Helena mean, what is she getting at?

As if she can see that (and she probably can), Helena smiles and adds, “Don’t think about it too much, just answer straight from the gut – yes or no?”

“Yes,” Myka says, straight from the gut. She has no idea if she’ll like it, but she does want to try, does want to see how it feels. 

“Do it, then,” Helena says, and her finger presses ever so slightly forwards, and she keeps eye contact with Myka as Myka takes the very tip of her finger into her mouth and swirls her tongue around it like it worked so well with Helena’s nipple. It’s a bit weird, that eye contact, but also a bit… thrilling. 

“I’m wondering if talking about this,” Helena says, and Myka releases the fingertip, and Helena lets her hand sink to Myka’s thigh again, “will help me focus. Help me stay in the right frame of mind. I’m sorry for springing this on you like I did, but it was a barely more than a hunch, and I just went with it. Is that okay?”

Myka breathes out a laugh, now that she understands. “Yeah! Yeah, that’s absolutely okay. That’s more than okay.” She smiles at Helena, suddenly overwhelmed by pride in Helena’s boldness.

“Okay, then here’s my other thought,” Helena says, and swallows and falls silent. 

“Yes?” Myka prompts after a moment. 

Helena audibly swallows again. “Could you… would you mind talking to me? Just to see if that works, too?”

“T-talk? To you?” Myka stutters. 

Helena nods. “Yes. Tell me what you are about to do, or what you want to do, or what it feels like what you’re doing? To… to keep me from getting lost in my head?”

“Oh…!” Again, Myka understands, but that makes the request not any less daunting. “Um. I… uh, I can try?”

“Would you?” Helena looks utterly vulnerable. 

Myka straightens her shoulders, takes a breath, and nods. “Yes. Yes, okay. Um.” And that’s where her thoughts leave her: with good intentions galore, but no clear idea how to go about the whole thing. 

Helena smiles up at her at that, and it seems that Myka’s bafflement helps to reassure her. “What would you like to do next?” she asks, and Myka’s eyes fall to her boobs again as if drawn by magnets, and Helena laughs, and then says, “Tell me.”

“I want to kiss your-” is it okay to call them boobs? Should she call them something else? 

“I only call them tits when I’m annoyed at them,” Helena says, voice confidentially low. “I’m good with you calling them boobs or breasts. Just not titties, please,” she adds with a grimace of distaste.

Myka feels like stuttering again. She gives herself a stern talking-to, takes another breath, gathers her confidence, and says, “I want to kiss your boobs.” 

“Please do,” Helena says with a rush of exhalation, her expression a mix between nerves and anticipation.

So Myka does. Bends down and presses a quick peck on the side of the right one, just to make Helena chuckle with a bit of released nerves, and then a longer one, openmouthed with suction and everything, just to make Helena’s back arch again. 

It works. “I’m… I’m gonna s-suck on your nipple,” Myka says, and does, and it works. 

“I’m gonna lick here,” Myka says, bolder now, running a finger along the slightly reddened crease where the wire of Helena’s bra usually sits, and she does, “and then I’m gonna blow on it,” and she does. And Helena moans, and presses herself into Myka’s mouth, so that’s probably proof enough for this hypothesis. 

It’s weird at first, but it gets easier. Myka alternates between announcements and questions, because consent still matters and Helena hasn’t strictly given it to anything beyond kissing her boobs. Kissing her stomach tastes slightly of salt; it rises and falls from Helena’s breaths and it trembles from her arousal, arousal which Helena is _allowing_ herself to feel because of the words that are falling from Myka’s mouth.

It’s powerful, and Myka wants more.

“Can I pull your pants off?”

“Yes.” It’s a tremulous, sibilant exhalation, and it’s powerful. 

“Your panties too?”

“Oh!” It’s a huffed laugh, which Myka joins when she remembers that pants are what the British call panties, and when Helena breathes another “Yes” immediately after, Myka flushes with a joy, a pride, that is both fierce and gentle. 

Helena’s fingers team up with Myka’s to make quick work of belt buckle and button and zipper, and it’s Helena who bunches pants and panties together and pushes both off her hips, and Myka whose mouth falls open as she sees another person’s most intimate parts for the first time.

Say something, her thoughts urge her. Don’t think, just say something. She needs you to speak, so talk to her. 

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispers reverentially. “And, um, you… you smell so good.” Because Helena is, and does, and Helena’s hands are opening and closing almost convulsively up at her stomach. 

Myka catches them for a moment, kisses each set of knuckles, breathes, “Beautiful,” again, and kisses a trail from Helena’s belly button to the beginning of her dark, tight curls. “Your skin is so soft,” she goes on, diverting to the side to kiss her way around the neat triangle, and then hits a spot that makes Helena hiss and twitch. “Ticklish?”

Helena makes an affirmative noise, and Myka makes a mental note. And then she realizes that she might have a naked woman in front of her, but she has very little idea what to do next. And since her mouth and her thoughts are hotwired now without any kind of filter in between, she says, “Tell me what to do.”

Helena gasps. Then, haltingly, she says, “Run… run your hands down my thighs.” 

Myka empathizes – she knows how not easy this is to say these things, and so she simply does what she’s told to reassure Helena that it’s okay to tell her to do these things. 

She does not expect Helena’s knees to fall open when she does, and it leaves her breathless. She can see even more now, and it’s even more beautiful. And it… it glistens. Helena glistens, with arousal, because of what they’re doing, because of what Myka is doing.

“Lie- would you lie down between them?” Helena says next, and Myka is kind of glad that she’s still wearing her own panties and pants, because once she does what Helena asks she’ll be halfway off the futon and definitely out from under the sheets, and in the chill of the attic, having your legs clothed is helpful. 

“Um, s-spread me open,” Helena says, “with your fingers,” and Myka almost keens at the idea and then remembers: talk.

“Yes,” she whispers, and marvels at how low, how husky she sounds.

“Lord, your voice,” Helena moans, and Myka would swear she saw a tremor run across Helena’s entire body. “Talk to me, please talk to me…”

Myka swallows, clears her throat, tries to find words, and finally goes with “I’m, uh… I’m going to spread you open. Okay?” Those were Helena’s last instructions, and she hasn’t followed them yet. It takes her a moment to position herself-

And then Helena says, “Wait,” and Myka freezes, but Helena just grabs a pillow and pushes it under her butt, and that is-

“Oh wow,” Myka says, “this is much better,” and yeah, so she _might_ have read up on some things, and this _might_ have come up, but she’d clean forgotten about it? “I can see how… how wet you are,” she says, her voice reverential again because that is how she feels, and besides, “It is so incredible to know I did that.” She leans closer until she’s sure Helena can feel her breath on her slickness, and says, “I want to touch you now. Can I?”

“…yes…” The word is small, but it’s not tense as it was when Helena was working herself up to continuing with this. It’s more as if Helena’s brain needs a moment to process that she’s been asked a question, that Myka requires an answer. 

Myka runs a finger along Helena’s labia, just the outside edge, and Helena shudders a moan. “I’m going to open you,” Myka says again, now that she has indulged in that first touch – it feels so- “You feel so silky,” she says, “you’re dry here,” she runs her finger over the outside of Helena’s sex, “so wet here,” she runs her finger down the center, and Helena exhales, and Myka takes all her courage and says, firm and clear, “and I will spread you open and touch you.”

“Please,” Helena moans, urgency tightening her voice.

“Oh wow,” Myka breathes as she peels back Helena’s folds. She knows what she’s looking at, has seen it on enough diagrams to identify labia maiora and minora, clitoris, urethral and vaginal opening, perineum – but still, up until now, those were clinical terms. 

This is Helena, glistening, flushed, pulsing – waiting. “God, you are beautiful,” Myka murmurs, almost to herself. “You look like flower petals, and I- Can I kiss you? Please?”

“Yes,” Helena hisses, almost thrusting herself into Myka’s face, she arches so much. “Yes, please, _please,_ yes-”

Myka doesn’t need telling twice. She bends down and indulges her tongue even more than she did her finger.

She finds and suckles on Helena’s labia minora, flicks her tongue under and over, and Helena shudders underneath her.

She finds and licks across Helena’s entrance, and Helena bucks with a breathy moan. 

And then she finds and teases Helena’s clit, and Helena calls out, wordlessly, breathlessly, uninhibited.

And then Helena starts talking, and now _she_ seems to have hotwired her thoughts to her mouth, because it’s a running commentary on how good it feels what Myka is doing, interspersed with a few gasped instructions like ‘more pressure’ or ‘left a bit’ and ‘I need y- I need your fin- fingers, _please,_ Myka’ as if anyone could deny anything said in this tone of voice. Myka repositions herself again and Helena is arching upwards in anticipation, and Myka hesitates for the briefest of moments, wondering which finger, or fingers, and Helena is obviously reading her mind-

“First and second finger, please, Myka, _please,_ I _need_ …” 

And Myka throws a quick glance up and her eyes meet Helena’s and it hits them both like lightning, and Myka keeps her gaze on Helena as she readies her first two fingers and finds Helena’s entrance, and Helena keeps her gaze on Myka as she pushes herself onto Myka’s fingers, and then her eyes flutter close and her head lolls back and she gives off a sound that is the very definition of ‘unfettered’ and rolls through Myka like thunder.

Her fingers are inside Helena. 

It feels incredible, tight and warm and gripping and loosening; Helena is still pushing, grinding almost at Myka’s chin, and it’s then that Myka catches wise and lowers her mouth onto Helena’s clit again. It takes her a while to develop a rhythm; there’s just so much to take in, and she feels she has barely gotten it together when there’s a hand on her head almost shoving her aside, way more uncoordinated than forceful-

“Up here,” Helena pants, “up here, please, I need you to talk to me.”

“But-” but your clit, Myka wants to say, and then Helena’s fingers, a bit more coordinated now, land right on it. 

“I’ll take- care. Please, Myka, I-”

“Yeah, of course.” Again the repositioning; this is not something Myka had expected, but she gets why Helena wants the change, so she tries to be as fast as she can with two of her fingers being indispensable where they are. “I’m here,” she says, lying down next to Helena with one leg hooked over Helena’s thigh, and pulls the sheets close around them again. “I’m here, and I’m inside you, and you feel incredible, just incredible.”

Helena turns her head, presses it against Myka’s shoulder. “Close,” she says still in that choppy staccato, “please- hold me-”

So Myka shimmies her arm underneath Helena’s neck and around her shoulders and pulls her into a tight embrace. “I’m here,” she says again. “I’m here. I’ve got you.” 

Helena’s hips are jutting rhythmically against her, and that’s easy enough to interpret; Myka matches her stroke for stroke even as she feels Helena’s hand flutter above hers with a speed and pressure Myka herself probably wouldn’t have given her unless asked outright. Then an idea occurs to her. “I’m going to change my angle,” she announces, and shifts her body so that she can put her own hips behind her thrusts, and when she resumes her motions, Helena cries out again. “God, this is unbelievable,” Myka says. “You’re so… You just shout out like that, and it’s so…” Helena gives another cry; in fact, she starts to gasp them out every time Myka’s thrust finds its mark. 

And then Helena’s hips lose their rhythm, and she gasps, “Don’t- stop- please- don’t- stop,” in time with Myka’s thrusts. 

Myka wouldn’t dream of it. “I won’t,” she reassures Helena, even though she’s starting to wonder how long her arm and wrist can keep up. The thing is: she will keep this up if it kills her; tendonitis is a small price to pay for Helena slowly coming apart like she is. “I won’t.” She can feel Helena strain. 

By all that’s holy, she can feel Helena _strain,_ can feel her tense, can feel her insides’ grip tighten around her fingers-

And no matter how much she strains, Helena doesn’t come. She presses out an “Almost,” once, thrice, five times, her fingers frantic on her own clit, her head trembling against Myka’s chest, her other hand digging into Myka’s shoulder, and then she lets out a frustrated noise to end all frustrated noises. “Stop.” Myka does, immediately, but when she starts withdrawing her fingers, Helena’s hand falls to her wrist and stops her. “No,” she says hoarsely, “don’t. Please.”

“Alright.” Myka keeps her fingers where they are, surrounded by pulsating, hot slickness, keeps them as still as she can. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Helena groans, loaded with frustration, which Myka can fully understand. “Sorry,” Helena apologizes, “that was not meant for you.”

“I get it,” Myka says. “It’s okay.” It’s only now that she realizes how fast her heart is beating; it’s nice to catch her breath, as it were. 

“You,” Helena states, “have far too many pieces of clothing on your person.”

“It was kind of handy when I was… um. You know.”

“Going down on me?” There’s a teasing lilt in Helena’s words and here Myka is, remnants of said activity sticky on her face, two fingers buried knuckles deep, blushing regardless. 

_“Anyway,”_ Myka says, determined not to let that blush or Helena’s teasing stop her, “my legs were hanging off the bed. Kinda chilly, you know.”

“Yes, well,” Helena says diffidently, “I’ll see about the space heater tomorrow.”

Myka snorts a soft laugh. Of all the things to be talking about in this situation… 

“I’d like to give it another try, if you don’t mind,” Helena says, and brings Myka’s focus right back to this situation. 

“Right now?”

Helena hums affirmatively. “Can we- can you try the… the come hither motion? Inside?” She holds her own hand up to demonstrate, blushing fiercely as she does so, probably because her fingers are wet enough to glisten. 

It’s reassuring, that blush. Myka nods. “Sure,” she says, sounding way more put together than she feels. Another thought hits her, and she barely hesitates before letting it loose. “And, um. Do you want me… up here or, ah, down there again?”

“Up here,” Helena says immediately. “I… It’s… good to be held, and you talking to me,” she sucks in a breath. “Really does help to… keep me where I need to be? My thoughts?”

“Oh wow. Yeah. Okay. Excellent.” Myka grins. Definitely worth it to have pushed past her own awkwardness. 

“I’m sorry that I’m so weird.”

“No!” Myka replies quickly, leaning back to meet Helena’s eyes. “You’re not weird at all. You just need what you need. Nothing wrong with that.” She smiles at the expression of skeptical incredulity on Helena’s face. “Seriously,” she affirms. “You’re good. You’re fine. This is… Everything about this is absolutely okay. Okay?”

Helena takes a deep breath, so deep that Myka can feel it, slightly, on her fingers. She flutters them a little, as if to say hello, and Helena’s eyes open wide.

“Was that good or bad?” Myka asks, stilling again. 

“Good,” Helena whispers immediately. “Do- do that again.”

Myka wiggles her fingers again, and- god, she can _see_ Helena’s pupils blow wide. 

“Again.”

Myka obliges. 

Helena cants her hips forwards, captures a different angle, groans, and reaches for her clit again. “Keep going. Please.” 

Myka does. It’s a mix between the finger wiggle when you wave to someone and the way you tickle someone, only slower. And her fingertips graze into an area of Helena’s insides that feels different than the rest, and yields a different result when touched – is this the g-spot thing? Out of curiosity, she keeps her fingers pressed to it and wiggles just a little.

Helena gives a strangled cry, and her fingers dig into Myka’s shoulders again. “Yes,” she hisses. 

“You feel incredible,” Myka tells her, mindful of the other task, the one she’s been neglecting. “I can feel you moving around my fingers-”

“Give me another,” Helena interrupts her.

“Huh?”

“Another finger. Please.”

“Of course,” Myka says, and then finds it easier said than done; her outer fingers are less – comparatively, but still – um, lubricated than the others, and she doesn’t want to hurt Helena, even if Helena has asked for the addition. 

“Just do it,” Helena insists, _“please.”_ She tenses, as if bracing herself, and Myka gives in and pushes her third finger in, and instead of flinching, Helena just softens again. “Yes,” she moans against Myka’s shoulder, pressing an open-mouthed, incredibly sloppy kiss to the nearest patch of skin in front of her, and as Myka begins to move her fingers again, Helena just stays in that position, keeps her lips pressed to skin, licks, sucks, moans into it, and it is the most… the most _wanton_ thing Myka has ever experienced. No other word fits. 

“Whoa,” she gasps, “wow, okay. I’ll just… I’ll keep moving inside you-”

“-till I come,” Helena joins in, her lips moving against Myka’s skin then latching onto it again. “Please.”

“-till you come,” Myka confirms, and it hits her that that is exactly what she’s doing – whatever she can to make Helena come. “I can keep doing this, I can do something else, whatever you want, Helena, whatever you need, just tell m-”

“Push… into me…” Helena groans, and now her hips are rolling into Myka again, slow and steady, “please. Please, your fingers, I… slow, please… I…” 

“Of course,” Myka whispers again. She brings her hips into her thrusts now, revels in how Helena meets her motions, how it stings where Helena is full-on biting into the skin above her armpit now – not deeply, Myka’s muscles are too taut for her bite to gain much purchase – how Helena is giving soft, high, long keens now in time with their strokes. Myka’s fingers move with care and deliberation, finding the soft internal spot, pressing into it on the instroke, curling against it on the outstroke.

“Oh god,” Helena mumbles, and then Myka can feel the grip of her insides change. “Oh god,” Helena repeats, “don’t stop, don’t stop, oh my go-”

“I won’t,” Myka promises, keeping her measured pace as Helena’s movements utterly lose cohesion, as Helena falls apart with a long, throaty wail muted by Myka’s shoulder, bucking and shuddering until she subsides, which Myka takes as her clue to stop her thrusts as well and withdraw her hand. 

Helena’s arms scrabble wildly, unseeingly at Myka’s torso until Myka wraps Helena in her embrace, tight and secure within the sheets and against her chest, whispering reassurances into her hair, ignoring the wetness that pools on her skin where Helena’s tears fall.


	25. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just like Chapter 24, this chapter contains an explicit sexual encounter between our two protagonists. If that's not your jam, the next chapter (Chapter 26) will go up on Friday, and while it mentions that sex has happened, it is way less explicit than this one and the last. No worries if you want to skip.

“Tell me,” Helena asks Myka when she has the mental wherewithal to do so. “Myka, please – please tell me. Say the words. Tell me you-” she can’t say the words. She needs to hear them, but she can’t say them until Myka does, and she hopes that Myka understands. “Tell me that you-”

She feels Myka’s breath catch, feels her shoulders settle, feels her tighten her arms. “I love you,” Myka breathes out next to Helena’s ear.

Helena can’t help herself: she lets out a high, unrestrained sob. She feels so utterly fallen apart, so intrinsically safe – she gave herself over, and now she needs to feel loved, and she _does_ feel loved, but she needs to hear it, too. “Again,” she pleads, and Myka, just as she has done every single time Helena has asked something of her today, delivers. 

“I love you.” A kiss lands on Helena’s hair. “Helena, I love you.” Another kiss lands on her forehead. “I love you so much.”

Helena’s hands clench and unclench around Myka’s shoulder like a kitten kneading for milk. She needs to hear it again, from now until the end of time, but she can’t ask Myka to repeat it; she already did once and she shouldn’t be greedy. But Myka is going on, alternating kisses with declarations of love until the void in Helena’s chest feels halfway sated, until she no longer feels like crawling within herself to fill it. She’s crying still – she couldn’t stop herself if she tried. But Myka understands, Myka is here, Myka has given Helena everything and more, including an orgasm she never thought possible until that serious, concerned, loving look on Myka’s face made her want to try and try again.

“I love you too,” she says when there’s a lull in Myka’s declarations. “I…” another sob shakes her as she realizes how much, how deeply, how utterly she loves Myka. She clings to Myka’s shoulders for dear life. “I love you,” she whispers, helpless to her own emotions. 

Myka’s hold on her tightens, reassures. Myka is her port in this storm, her haven; Myka is _here._ Skin on skin on-

Fabric. 

Helena tugs at Myka’s belt, her fingers weak and fumbling. “Can you take them off? I… I want to feel all of you. Please?”

“I’d need to let you go,” Myka replies, her hesitation obvious. 

Helena ponders this for a moment. “If that’s the only reason,” she says finally, “if you’re okay with it otherwise, I can… I can do it. I can take them off of you. But if you rather didn’t-”

“Um,” Myka says. “I, um.” She swallows. “It’s not like I _don’t,_ but… Okay, so don’t get me wrong if I ask this, but, um… why? I mean,” she adds quickly, “I don't mind either way, I just… I just would like to know what you… what you want?”

“Oh! Yes, I understand.” It’s Helena’s turn to hesitate now. “Right now, I simply want to snuggle without… without anything in between us,” she says. “It feels like a… somewhat like a barrier, you know?” Myka nods her understanding, and Helena breathes a bit more easily. “I will say I can’t rule out that… that snuggling might turn to other… things. If we both feel like it. Although it certainly doesn’t have to, if you don’t want. No matter if we’re both…” she inhales sharply, then brings out the word, “naked.”

Myka is silent for a few moments, then says, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“You sound surprised.” 

Helena can hear the smile in Myka’s words. “Well, I suppose I am,” she admits. 

Under her chin, she can feel Myka shrug. “It’s not… not that much to ask,” Myka says. “Seeing as you’re naked already. Me taking my clothes off would only be fair, right? No matter what happens after.” Then Myka tilts her head. “Since you do sound a bit more… a bit calmer, I’ll ask again: is it okay if I let you go for that long?”

Helena takes a deep breath – and then laughs. “Oh dear.”

“Hm?”

“My _intention_ was,” Helena explains, “to just… you know, take a breath. Fortify myself for our parting,” and yes, she’s using grandiose words on purpose, just to make Myka chuckle, and it works. “But then… inhaling this deeply means I can… well.” She clears her throat, and Myka, already the decisive deductive step ahead of her, groans and tilts her head back to laugh quietly. “Yeah,” Helena concludes. “It smells – we smell like…”

“Like we made love,” Myka says, just as soft as her laugh has been.

And she’s right. They made love – Myka made love to Helena, to be exact. That is precisely what she has done, and that is precisely what, now that the scent of it has hit Helena’s nose, Helena wants to do to Myka. 

“May I just say that my intentions have… shifted?” Helena says. 

Myka pulls back slightly, and meets Helena’s eyes for the first time. And suddenly Helena remembers that her face is still wet with tears, but before she can hide, Myka has a corner of the sheets in her hand and is using it to dry Helena’s face, gentle enough to fill Helena’s eyes all over again. When she’s done, she lets the corner go, cups Helena’s face, kisses her – tender at first, but they _are_ pressed chest to chest and Myka’s face _does_ have her own scent on it and Helena is only human, and she _needs._

She needs to make love to Myka. 

So she deepens the kiss, and hums her appreciation when Myka, without the slightest hesitation, opens her lips to welcome Helena’s tongue, when Myka returns her kiss with abandon and with hands roaming every inch of Helena’s back, when Myka moans into the kiss and bucks her hips into Helena’s, however involuntarily. 

They end up taking Myka’s trousers and pants off together, just like they did Helena’s. And just like Myka did, Helena takes a moment to cherish the sight in front of her, and to return to Myka all the compliments she showered Helena with. 

Myka’s limbs are longer, leaner than Helena’s, her breasts smaller, her pubic hair a shade darker than the curls on her head but lighter than Helena’s, and trimmed closer than Helena does her own. But she, too, shaves her labia, and she, too, glistens. She started out squirming, but stills as Helena’s words settle on her. 

“I would like to touch you,” Helena announces. “Would that be alright?” She’s well aware that she’s the first person to ever do this, and she wants to do it right – and that includes asking consent, every step of the way, just like Myka did for her.

“Yes.” Myka’s voice is husky again, and just like before, it works its magic on Helena, going straight to her center – but this isn’t about her, this is about Myka. 

Helena sinks down between Myka’s legs that open readily for her, and runs a finger down the length of her sex, off to the side, just like Myka did. 

Myka hisses in a breath, and Helena stops. “Are you alright?” she asks. 

“Yeah, I…” Myka chuckles low in her chest. “I just… I’ve never been touched there. Well, outside of, you know, at the gynecologist’s. Which, I mean. _Very_ different context.”

Helena smiles. “I do know, yes,” she says. “What would be best for me to do right now?”

Myka thinks about this for a while. Then, with the most lovable little furrow between her eyebrows, she says, “Can you… touch me, but keep your finger still? In one spot? Just so… just so I can get used to it?”

For a moment, a very brief, naughty moment, Helena considers placing her finger right on Myka’s clit, but that wouldn’t be nice, now would it. So she simply puts it where it was a moment ago, slightly off to the side of Myka’s labia. “Like this?”

Myka nods, and her hum of confirmation is slightly strained. 

“Take your time, alright?” Helena says, nervous for Myka’s sake. “If this is too odd, just say the word and I’ll withdraw. Anytime, any moment.”

Myka hums again, and it sounds a tad more relaxed. “I know,” she says. “Thank you.”

Helena smiles up at her. Then her eyes fall on Myka’s hands, balled into the sheets, knuckles white. She reaches out and places her free hand atop of one, ever so lightly, ever so reassuringly, she hopes. It does make Myka smile and grasp her fingers instead of the sheet. Helena strokes the back of Myka’s hand with her thumb, back and forth in time with her breaths. 

Then Myka laughs, and runs her other hand through her hair. “Okay,” she says, “I get it now.”

Helena raises her eyebrows. “Get what, darling?”

“Feeling worried about being weird.”

“Ah. Well. Yes.” Helena smiles back, squeezing the hand she’s holding. “And I get why you insisted I wasn’t.”

“The things a change in perspective will do to you,” Myka deadpans. “Still wouldn’t want to walk a mile in your shoes, though,” she adds, “your heels would give me cramps.”

“No doubt,” Helena agrees, remembering how miserable she felt after her first day of wearing even just one and a half inches, and now she’s up to three.

“You do look amazing in them.”

“Thank you. You should see me in a skirt and heels,” Helena says with a smirk. She does know her physical assets, after all, and heels play to her calves’ strengths most of all. A shame if those are clad in trouser legs, no matter how fitted.

Myka literally gulps. “One day?” she says hopefully. 

“Oh, absolutely.” Her finger is still where it was; her other hand’s thumb is still rubbing the back of Myka’s hand.

“Okay,” Myka says, with a breath that seems deeper than the acceptance warrants until Helena realizes Myka isn’t talking about heels and skirts, but about where Helena’s finger is and where it might want to go.

Still Helena lingers. “Okay?” she asks; she wants to be sure, she wants Myka to be sure.

“Yeah,” Myka replies. “Yes.”

“Please let me know anytime I’m doing something that makes you uncomfortable, alright?”

“Promise.”

And it’s then, and only then, that Helena moves her finger. She travels lightly, skimming the wetness and the silky skin next to it. “Am I tickling you?”

Myka shakes her head. Her eyes are closed, and the furrow is back; this is Myka Bering in cataloguing mode, and Helena is happy to oblige. She increases pressure, but runs the same path again. It makes Myka’s labia fall slightly open, and Helena heroically withstands the temptation to dive in. Then she repeats the motion on the other side, going upwards this time. 

“The center,” Myka says when Helena stops. “Please?”

So Helena repeats the motion again, changing only one single variable – location. 

The sound Myka makes is halfway between an exhale and a moan, and her legs fall open wider. “Again,” she whispers.

Helena complies. 

Myka’s hips buck when Helena’s fingertip runs over her clit. “There,” she says breathily. “Stay there?”

“With pleasure,” Helena replies. It’s exquisite to watch Myka; Helena isn’t sure if Myka is aware that she’s being watched, focused as she is on these new sensations, but the sight just floods Helena with emotion. She stays with Myka’s clit, maintaining location and switching other variables now; speed, pressure, direction – all with merely the tip of her finger, though. 

She would love to use the tip of her tongue, but- patience. This is Myka mapping things out; it’s only a question of time until Myka herself asks for a compare and contrast. 

As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even take a minute. “Could you- Can I… can I feel your tongue?”

“With even greater pleasure,” Helena replies, and smiles when Myka suddenly yelps and grabs a pillow to shove under her butt. “Thank you.”

Helena has had Myka’s scent in her nose for a while now, and has done her best to ignore it – but now, _now_ she can indulge. And then she allows herself to indulge in the flavor, and then in the sounds that her indulgence calls forth. 

She could get happily lost in these sensations. 

Myka isn’t as vocal as Helena was – and truth to tell, Helena has _never_ been as vocal as she was just now, but that’s beside the point – so Helena has to take other cues, up to and including asking, to find out if what she’s doing is working for Myka. She figures that the asking helps Myka in her determination to map this, to process what Helena is doing to her, and yet-

Ultimately, there will come a moment when Myka needs to let go of that. And Helena wonders if Myka can. 

It won’t be disastrous if she doesn’t; of course not. Even what they’re doing right now is enjoyable, after all. Despite Helena’s push against her own limits earlier, this isn’t only about orgasm. As cheesy and cliché as it sounds, it is about the journey more than the destination. 

Time will tell either way and until then, the journey does matter, and the journey is marvelous. 

Myka starts grinding herself into Helena whenever Helena’s tongue nears her entrance, and it’s not long before she asks to feel Helena inside of her. Helena starts out with her tongue and, when Myka asks for more, proceeds to one finger, then two. Myka’s back arches off the futon when Helena adds the second one. She’s tighter than Helena; those two fingers (and Helena’s fingers are slimmer than Myka’s) are plenty. Helena sets a slow pace to let Myka get used to the feeling, just a simple in-and-out, not much force behind it and, with how wet Myka is, not much friction either. 

It’s when Myka begins to squirm, trying to press her mons into the heel of Helena’s hand, that Helena bends down again to resume her ministrations on Myka’s clit. Myka moans out loud, and then her hand falls to Helena’s shoulder, and Helena stops. “Too much?”

“I ca- I can’t- I don’t know what you’re doing. I can’t tell what you’re doing.” Myka sounds helpless, almost scared. 

“I have two fingers inside of you,” Helena explains, as factually as she can, “and that was my tongue on your clit.”

“Holy shit,” Myka exhales, ball of her other hand over her eyes. “Okay. Okay. Holy shitballs.”

“May I recommend you stop trying to pinpoint what it is I’m doing, in favor of letting yourself just feel it?” Helena suggests. 

“Yeah, no, I know what you mean,” Myka says, gesturing floppily, “but it just… God, it just feels so good, and I want to know what it is I’m feeling. You know?”

“I do,” Helena replies quickly. “And if you like, I’ll give you a blow-by-blow after.”

Myka laughs out loud at that, happy and unrestrained. “Now there’s an idea,” she says, softening as, for the first time, she opens her eyes and looks down at Helena. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

Helena tries very hard not to preen. “I have my moments.”

Myka laughs again, then flops her head back down and drapes her arms across it. “Okay,” she says, with a big breath. “Okay, go on. I’ll try. But I’ll hold you to that blow-by-blow,” she adds. 

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Helena presses a quick kiss to the inside of Myka’s thigh. She flutters her fingers slightly against Myka’s g-spot, the way Myka did for her earlier. Myka’s breath leaves her in a rush, and Helena hums, cheek against the spot she just kissed. “These are my fingers,” she says, repeating the motion, “fluttering inside you. I’ll try to do the same thing with my tongue on your clit. Now – lie back, relax, and enjoy.”

“Yes ma’am,” Myka gives back.

“I guess I had that coming,” Helena mutters, and then puts her tongue to better use than talking. 

Myka does seem to be looser in her movements now; her focus broader, wider, more encompassing. Helena sets an easy rhythm, adding only the flutter to the in-and-out, timing her licks to match it. Myka builds slowly, but Helena is patient; her fingers are nimble and her wrists strong from playing piano again as much as she does. 

And when Myka says, “I think this isn’t working,” Helena easily changes track, stopping her in-and-out entirely to apply varying pressure on Myka’s g-spot instead while her tongue stops flicking and starts laving. 

She only stops for a short moment to ask, “Better?”, and when she receives a hissed “Yes” and an almost impatient grinding into her face, she quickly resumes her motions, and then starts alternating between her tongue and her thumb on Myka’s clit – and Myka shudders, and gives another “Yes,” garnished with a “whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.”

So Helena doesn’t. She’s pretty sure Myka can’t make head or tails of the combined sensations of a thumb pressing and a tongue swirling, but maybe that’s part of the appeal? Myka is trembling underneath her, tensing as her arousal mounts, tightening around Helena’s fingers-

When she comes, it starts just as slow; the slightest tremor, the minutest shaking, the softest of exhales, and for a moment it seems as though Myka expects things to stop there. 

“Keep going.” Helena pulls back just long enough to encourage her. “Keep going. Trust me.”

And Myka does, going along with Helena’s suggestion immediately and without question, straining into Helena’s touch, hands no longer at her face but fisted into the sheets, breathy moans rising as her wave mounts even higher only to be replaced by guttural exhalations as Helena increases her pace ever so slightly, increases her pressure on the spot within-

And then the wave crests and breaks, and washes Myka away. 

Her hips buck, her legs flail, her arms press into the mattress and her back arches off it, and her mouth utters the most beautiful and perfect moan Helena has ever heard. She hangs on as Myka rides it out, keeps her pace with fingers and tongue, and with a wail, Myka comes again, shaking, literally _shaking_ underneath Helena as it hits her. 

It takes a while to subside. 

Helena has stilled her fingers but not removed them, has stilled her tongue and thumb and laid her free hand flat on Myka’s mons, resting her head on it, allowing herself a smile tinged with not a little wonder – and not a little smugness.

“Wow,” Myka says weakly, echoing Helena’s thoughts. Then she laughs, breathlessly, helplessly, and Helena’s love spills over.

“I love you,” she whispers fervently. 

“I love you too,” Myka responds, still laughing, still breathless. “Oh my god,” she tells the ceiling.

“I’d love to come up and hug you.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because my fingers are still where they are,” Helena says delicately, “and I did not want to change that without announcing it.”

“Oh.” Myka swallows. “Yeah. Well, um. Go on then?”

Helena tries to be careful, but still Myka twitches and sucks in a breath as Helena slips out of her. “Sorry,” Helena says, inescapably contrite. 

“Nah, it’s alright,” Myka replies, and reaches for Helena’s shoulder with a scrabbly hand. “Come up here. I wanna hug you too.”

It’s the least coordinated Helena has ever felt Myka’s arms around her, but in context, it makes her… well. Proud, if truth be told. 

She did that. 

_She_ made Myka – precise, laser-focused Myka – this uncoordinated. She asked her to lie back and stop trying to process, and Myka has done just that. Which means Myka trusts her enough to go along with such a request. Which means Myka did what she did _for her,_ did it because Helena asked. 

_This_ is what’s making Helena tear up and hug Myka as tightly as she can. _This_ is what’s making her feel closer to Myka than she ever has. _This_ is what’s making her whisper “I love you” over and over again.

Forget about whose fingers or tongue were where just now: _this_ is the real intimacy of what they just did.

And if it comes to it, that makes _this_ the first time that matters to Helena. Not the first time someone touched intimate parts of her body, or she theirs, but the first time Helena let someone touch the intimate part of her _self._

And for the life of her she cannot envision this someone being anyone other than Myka.


	26. Myka

Thanksgiving Day dawns bright and clear, and Myka is still floating on hormones, and she’ll see Helena again today, outside of the restrictions of school, and Helena _will spend the night._

And as little as, right up until two days ago, Myka could envision making out with her girlfriend as home, as little does she care about the restrictions now. 

They can be quiet, right? People do that, right? And yeah, okay, so smuggling the attic sheets home and washing them – because holy shit had they needed a wash; Myka had never known that ‘female self-lubrication’ could mean _this much,_ but that was neither here nor there – had been a challenge, and doing the same with her own bed sheets might be more difficult still, but-

But people did that, right? They found ways to do that. 

Myka wants to find ways to do that, to do that again and again and again, because holy shit. Holy shitballs, even. 

Thinking about sex is incredibly distracting, and thinking about having sex with Helena? Let’s just say Myka has never felt more out of it.

Her dad insists on working in the bookstore by himself that morning, and sends Myka and Tracy to help their mom instead. He says he wants the new layout and new shelves and new books to be just so, and yeah, the way she knows him it’s better if he just does that himself. So Myka busies herself helping her mom in the kitchen until it’s time to pick up her girlfriend. And then after she’s done so, she busies herself focusing on the road to the point where her eyes burn, because Helena is dressed for the occasion, and looking at her, at the fitted pants and crisp shirt and _suit jacket_ that Myka can see where Helena’s coat is hanging open – let’s just say Myka would probably not tear her eyes away fast enough to prevent accidents from happening; accidents of any kind. Accidents like maybe driving to an empty parking lot somewhere and contrasting the texture of that shirt with what’s underneath it and-

Yeah, no. Eyes on the road, and hands to herself.

At least, she tells herself, at least Helena is fidgeting too. Myka is wearing the nicest pants she has, but more importantly, she’s put on the blue shirt Helena bought her; spent fifteen anxiety-ridden minutes ironing it and five more obsessing about whether or not it still sat right on her body all these weeks later, whether or not to wear it tucked into her pants or over it, whether or not Helena would still like it on her, but-

Helena’s face when she saw Myka in it – because Myka had not put on a coat, not for a fifteen-minute drive there and back – Helena’s face _even now_ makes very clear that Helena does, in fact, still like it. And that makes all the nervousness worth it. 

When they arrive back at Myka’s parents’, Shaw’s there too, and Warren Bering ushers all of them into the bookstore, saying that he has to show them something. He leads them through the store and out onto the main street, and when Myka turns back around to look at the storefront, her jaw drops to the asphalt. 

Yeah, okay, this _definitely_ takes her mind off things.

The store sign is new, so new that the ladder still leans against it; ‘Bering’s Books’ shines proudly in the weak November sun. 

“No sons, after all,” Warren Bering points out, gesturing awkwardly over the family, then up to the sign. 

“Oh Warren,” Jean exclaims, hands clasped and eyes misty. 

Myka has no idea what to say or how to deal. 

“Thanks, Dad,” Tracy says and steps forward arms outstretched, but Warren stops her with a quickly upheld hand, a dismissive gesture.

“Alright, alright. Let’s head back inside; damn cold out here, and I want to show you the tote bags.”

Sure enough, the tote bags say ‘Bering’s Books’ too, gold letters on white background on light blue canvas that matches the storefront right down to the font used. 

“Was time for a new sign anyway,” Warren says, “the old one was rusting off the hooks. And if we’re… ‘rebranding’,” the word falls disdainfully from his lips, “I figured now’s the time to correct the name, too.”

“Too right,” Tracy says, ever the cheerleader. “Dad, this is great. It really means a lot.”

Myka nods in agreement, still speechless. A hand steals into hers and squeezes, then quickly drops away. But Helena is there, at Myka’s shoulder, a solid and reassuring presence. And there’s the new science fiction shelf, the new fantasy shelf, the new display table filled with books that Myka would have never thought to see in this store, not in her lifetime. 

She’s gonna have to process all this, and really, it’s good that the store’s closed and there are no customers right now, because she can’t even speak to her family members, much less to strangers.

Warren goes on about how annoying it was to file the new name with the authorities and with all the suppliers and how someone has to figure out how to do that on ‘those social medias’, because of course he doesn’t want to deal with _those_ – but he _did_ go to all that trouble. He _did_ change the name. And that means something, right? 

Helena’s hand is back in Myka’s, because Warren isn’t looking, and then he is and Helena’s fingers loosen and try to pull back but Myka doesn’t let them, holds on tight. Even when Warren’s eyes linger, when they narrow, when they widen.

And all Warren says is, “Huh. I suppose I’ll have to find space for another themed shelf, then.”

“What do you mean?” Tracy, who hasn’t seen because she’s still busy cooing over the tote bags, asks.

And Warren says, “Well, it seems that _both_ my daughters are… you know. Um.”

Tracy’s eyes fly up and over to Myka, as do all other eyes in the room. 

Helena’s fingers tremble slightly in Myka’s hand, and yeah, Myka should probably have asked if this was alright, if Helena was ready. But really, her thoughts were otherwise occupied and now it’s too late. And then Helena steps up next to Myka almost in defiance, linking their hands even more firmly than they were before.

“It’s called gay, dad. You can use the word,” Tracy says in the silence. “Unless… unless that’s not the term you use?” She looks at Myka with her head tilted in question. 

And Myka laughs. Really, at this point, everything about this is funny. “I’m not sure yet,” she admits. “This is all still so new. I… I don’t know? I guess I…” she falls silent and shakes her head again. “I have no idea.”

“Maybe you’re just helenasexual,” Tracy suggests, and both Shaw and Helena groan, and just like that conversation starts to flow again, loud and only slightly awkward, a little tentative and with everyone talking over each other around the two of them, and Helena is still next to Myka, holding her hand. 

“Are you alright?” she asks Myka at some point. 

Myka can only shrug and repeat herself. “I have no idea.”

“Guys, I think we broke her,” Tracy says dryly. “H.G., have you tried turning her off and on again?”

“Tracy,” Jean says in reprimand. “Myka, sweetheart, come up and help me prepare the stuffing? You too, Helena?” Tracy only rolls her eyes in reply.

On the stairs and with the doors safely closed behind them, Myka’s mom pulls both of them into a tight hug. “That went better than expected, didn’t it?” she says brightly. 

“Mom, did you know about the name?” Myka asks. 

“I had my suspicions,” Jean says. “When he started going on about replacing the sign. There’s no rust on those hooks; they’re stainless steel and always have been. I might have… well.” She clears her throat. “Looked a bit. Into his order to Hyneman’s. Just to make sure he wasn’t going to… you know.” She gestures in the direction of the storefront. “Do something, um… thoughtless, and leave it as it was for some reason.”

Thoughtless – that was one way of putting it. 

“Anyway,” Jean goes on, turning and resuming her way up the stairs, “strictly speaking, yes, I knew.” When she ushers Helena and Myka into the kitchen, she adds, “But that wasn’t what I was talking about, sweetie.”

“I know, Mom,” Myka says quietly. “I just… I guess I’m… a bit overwhelmed?”

“That’s alright.” Jean pats Myka’s cheek affectionately. “Take your time. Just make sure you don’t mix up sugar and salt, okay?”

Next to Myka, Helena bites back a laugh. 

Myka is tense throughout the day, throughout readying the food and the store, throughout the actual Thanksgiving dinner, throughout the parlor games her mother insists they play afterwards. She can’t help it; she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop but it doesn’t. Yes, her dad is still awkward around his daughters’ two girlfriends, but Helena has pulled out all the stops on her charm, and Shaw is… well, just simply Shaw, like she always is, and maybe there is no shoe to drop. Maybe there really isn’t. 

The midnight opening is the fullest the bookstore has ever been. People are queueing, legit _queueing_ out the door. And first in line are-

Pete and his mother, dressed as Captain America and a Starfleet captain respectively. Pete argues strongly that they both totally count as literary characters and should get given tote bags, but Jane insists on paying the full three bucks per piece regardless. And then Myka hears her dad pressing the bags on Pete and Jane in his stubborn ‘take no hand-outs’ voice, and such is the mood of the night that Myka dares taking the bundle of bills from Jane’s hand and stuffing them in the ‘donate your change’ jar instead. When she turns away (because she might have dared to stuff the money in the donations jar, but she doesn’t quite dare meet her father’s eyes now), she runs into Claudia, dressed all in black leather, and Leena who wears business clothes and an eye-patch. Behind them, Steve stands looking a little sheepish in chainmail and a cape and wielding a large foam hammer. Josh, next to him, is dressed like a dirt biker and has a bow slung over his shoulder. All of them claim they don’t want a tote bag; Myka thinks that what they don’t want is a discussion with Warren Bering, and can’t fault them. None of them stay long, seeing how full the store is; Pete promises to come back the next day and help if necessary. It’s a sweet gesture of all of them to show up – Jean keeps patting Pete’s arm as he, last to go, makes his way out of the store, and even Warren seems impressed by his daughter’s friends’ loyalty.

Even after their friends have gone, the remaining crowd is so large that the six of them split tasks: Helena and Shaw point all the other customers to where they can find this title or that publication, Tracy and Jean staff the register, Myka and Warren restock. Restock! They actually run out of copies for some books, especially on the SF/F shelves, and Myka would rather bite her tongue than tell her father she told him so, but _she has fucking told him so for ages._ They all work together as if they’ve done so for years, and the worst rush is over at two-thirty. They’re fully out of tote bags (a good two dozen of which went to more people in costumes); there are multiple empty spots on the shelves and displays where they’ll have to re-order over the weekend; the donations jar is overflowing. 

And then Warren brings out champagne to celebrate, yes, even for his underage daughters and their girlfriends – he actually uses the word girlfriends! – and Helena takes one swallow, blanches, claps her hand in front of her mouth, and hastens to the bathroom.

“What’s up with you, sport?” Warren asks when she comes back, “Not pregnant, are ya?”

And yes, okay, Helena had a similar, if not quite as violent reaction to the sweet potato casserole earlier today, but still, Myka wants the ground to open and swallow up her father. Does he _have_ to make it weird? 

Helena joins everyone’s laughter after a second of mortification, but moments later her eyes are flicking here and there as if she’s thinking hard, and that makes Myka nervous. “Are you alright?” she asks Helena when there’s a quiet moment. 

Helena bites her lip but nods, which really does nothing to alleviate Myka’s worry. She _knows_ it’s not the alcohol. Helena can hold her liquor; she has said so. And besides, it’s only been one sip.

Then Jean joins them. “Helena, dear, are you okay? You look awfully pale.” 

Again, Helena nods, this time with a smile that is fake enough to make Myka’s assessment of this situation spike from nerves to anxiety. “Probably just the lateness of the hour, Mrs.-” she sucks in a breath and corrects herself, “Jean.” Gestures at the overhead lamps and adds, “And the lighting. You know.”

“Well then how about you two go up and get ready for bed?” Jean replies, patting Helena’s arm. “We’ve got things handled down here, don’t worry.”

Helena nods before Myka can utter even one word of protest, and all but pulls Myka behind her up the stairs and into Myka’s bedroom. Then she starts pacing, and in a room as small as this, that means Myka has to sit down to be out of the way. She chooses the desk chair and pulls up her legs, and looks at her pacing girlfriend with no idea how to put into words what she needs to ask to make sense of this situation. 

“But what if I am?” Helena asks of the air, and Myka closes her eyes. 

There it is. 

But… but _how?_

When? 

_Who,_ for crying out loud?

_How?!_

Myka feels the questions roiling in her stomach. They want out, but if she opens her mouth now, it’s not questions that will come out but the remnants of her Thanksgiving dinner. That’s how ill she feels. 

Because while US sex ed might be the laughing stock of the rest of the world, Myka knows enough to know for sure that it can’t have been her. 

Helena is pulling on her hair now, and looks just as queasy as Myka feels. She stops her pacing, back to Myka, hand pressed against her mouth, other hand fisted against her temple. “I missed-” she says, and stops, and groans. “I missed them, didn’t I. _Fuck.”_ She turns to Myka. “Are there any places open right now where I could-” she inhales sharply, trembles for a moment, closes her eyes. “Fuck,” she winces out. Then, “Where I could buy a pregnancy test?”

Myka wants to laugh. Wants to say ‘Welcome to the US,’ or something similarly inane. Because yes, fuck it but yes, even at three a.m. on Black Friday morning there will be a Walgreens or something.

For a fucking pregnancy test. 

For her _girlfriend._

And because she has no idea how to say all this, she just nods. Gets up. Grabs her wallet from her backpack. Opens the door, holds it for Helena. Grabs her coat and her car keys and door keys and-

And drives Helena to the nearest fucking Walgreens at three oh fucking five a fucking em.

She can’t bring her hands to open the car door when she turns off the ignition; can’t bring herself to go in with Helena. Can’t even bring herself to look over.

Helena bears only a moment of Myka’s silence before she leaves by herself. She returns a few minutes later with a bag that looks a bit fuller than just one pregnancy test, but whatever. 

Whatever. 

Myka drives her back on autopilot, unlocks the back door, trudges up the stairs-

To find four pairs of eyes waiting for them in the living room. 

Focusing on the Walgreens’ bag in Helena’s hand.

Sometimes the easiest conclusion to jump to is actually the correct one.

“Goddamnit, girls, I was _joking,”_ Warren growls. 

Helena sucks in a shuddering breath. 

“Warren.” Jean’s voice is mild. “Let’s just hope we can all laugh about it in fifteen minutes, yes?” She gets up from her chair and approaches Helena gently, slowly, and part of Myka wants to laugh because yes, of course her mom would be gentle and yes, this is the approach Helena needs right now and shit no, Myka herself sure as hell can’t give her that, the way things are. “Follow me, dear, please.”

At the door to the hallway, Jean lingers and looks back at Myka. She doesn’t say a word; she doesn’t have to. Myka shakes just enough numbness out of her limbs to follow. 

The bathroom door closing behind the three of them is a very final sound. 

Helena is crying. Just tears rolling down her face, slow, unceasing. Jean is talking to her, prompting her through the steps necessary to get ready to pee on a stick (or six, as the case might be). Jean has to prompt Myka, too, to turn away when the moment comes, because Myka is still not quite up to par with what is going on. 

“Best take your coat off too, sweetheart, hm?” Jean reminds Myka, and the sound of Myka peeling herself out of her coat drowns the sounds from behind them. “Helena, dear, are you done?” Jean calls out a few moments later, when all noise has ceased. 

Myka can hear Helena clear her throat. “Y-yes. Yes.”

“Excellent,” Jean says, and Myka has to hand it to her: she sounds as if this is just any other slightly complex but totally regular task a kid (or almost adult teenager) might need help with. “Are you all decent again? Is alright if we turn around now?”

“Yes.” This time, the answer comes quicker. 

Jean turns, then nudges Myka to follow suit. 

And Myka can’t. Like, the door is safe to look at. The door isn’t about to realize they’re pregnant, somehow, after two and a half months of-

“Can I see the instructions?” Jean is saying, and blood rushes into Myka’s ears. She can hear her mother hum briefly, the sounds of rustling paper, and then, “Okay, for these two, it’s one minute, this one’s two minutes, those two are three minutes and that one is five.” There are a few plasticky noises – maybe Jean’s ordering the sticks by duration? 

It’s what Myka would do. 

It’s what Myka should be doing. Instead she’s staring at the door. 

This is not okay. Helena – Helena _needs_ her. Instead of her girlfriend, Helena has a virtual stranger (okay, alright, her girlfriend’s mother that she’s had a reflexology foot massage with, but still) talk her through using pregnancy tests. Myka takes a deep breath and turns around. 

Helena’s cheeks are still wet, but it doesn’t look as if she’s still crying. That’s the first thing Myka notices. Helena’s fully dressed, too – and why wouldn’t she be; people do put their clothes back on after peeing, even if they’ve been peeing on sticks. 

And Helena is looking at Myka, with an expression of absolute self-effacement, arms wrapped around herself and mouth pinched tight, eyes dark and dark and dark with fright.

Myka feels her arms twitch, ready to reach out and offer a hug, but there is still that thing where pregnancy doesn’t just happen, and it can’t have been her.

Helena swallows, and drops her eyes, and Myka clenches her hands into fists at her sides. 

“These two are done, then,” Jean says into the silence. “This one should have a red plus or minus sign, and that one either one or two blue lines.”

One by one, over the next five minutes, the sticks do their thing. One by one, be it by double lines or red pluses or actual words, they spell out one thing:

Helena is pregnant. 

The other shoe has dropped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, some of you had already guessed - here we are. Tomorrow we'll have no less than four chapters of aftermath. Still, let me know what you think.


	27. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First of four chapters out today. After that, though, the next one isn't until in two weeks!

There’s a ringing in Helena’s ears that begins when she is making her way to a toilet to bring up the champagne she has barely gotten down; not because she hates the stuff or has had too much of it, but because all of a sudden the mere smell of it made her nauseous, just like the scent of marshmallows among all the savory dishes had earlier. Helena knows for a fact she likes marshmallows, and doesn’t dislike champagne, not per se. And _one_ sudden food or scent aversion might be coincidence, but two in one night?

The ringing in her ears persists through Warren Bering’s bad joke, through her hasty recollection and painstaking counting of days and occurrences. It makes the cashier’s words sound as if he’s speaking underwater. It all but clogs her ears to Jean’s instructions.

It rises as the tests do what they’re supposed to, drowns out everything as one stick after the other comes up positive, positive, positive.

Positive is the last thing Helena can feel right now. 

She feels ill, and if there was anything left in her stomach after earlier, she’d bring it up now. Her teeth are chattering with every breath she sucks in, her fingers clenched around the fabric of her shirt as she hugs herself. 

All she wants is for Myka to do the hugging; for Myka to hold her and tell her it’ll be alright. 

Or, alternately, to wake up from this nightmare which, weirdly, features her girlfriend’s mother taking charge of the whole bloody ordeal- 

Myka hasn’t said a word throughout. 

Not a single one.

Why?

Myka is looking ready to bolt. And Helena thinks that if she does, it will shatter Helena’s heart to pieces. 

Why, though? Myka is her girlfriend. Myka said she’d be at Helena’s side, come what may.

Why isn’t she?

“Goodness,” Jean says, as if they haven’t all been staring at the results wordlessly for minutes by now. “Goodness.” She rubs her hands down her sides of her trouser legs vigorously. “Well. I’d, uh, I’d say this calls for a, for a nice, for a nice cup of tea. What do you say, girls?”

Helena feels like laughing; the suggestion couldn’t be more cliché. But this is Jean Bering, who offered to be a mom-adjacent figure, who frankly is the only mom-adjacent figure Helena has right now, and…

And maybe this is a moment where a little bit of mothering is okay. So she nods, and it’s jerky because she’s still shaking, and she somehow makes her way past Myka who’s staring at her with an expression that Helena cannot decipher, and as she walks down the hall after Jean, Helena remembers that the living room is full of people.

Jean leads her to the kitchen, though, where she pulls out a chair for Helena to sink into. And then she leaves again and when she’s coming back, she’s physically dragging Myka along behind her, physically sitting her down in a chair cater-corner to Helena’s. Moments later, she shoos her husband away with a firm “Not now, Warren,” when he appears at the door, and Helena couldn’t be more relieved. She hasn’t really gotten over the fact yet that he knows about Myka and her; _this_ is a fact she does not want to share with him at this point, even as she accepts it’s probably inevitable that he’ll find out before too long. She just peed on sticks in his bathroom, after all. 

“Here,” Jean says, putting a cup in front of Helena and another in front of Myka, and then sitting down with a cup of her own. “Drink, dear. It’ll do you good.”

And Helena does as she’s told, because it’s a long time since she’s been mothered, and the tea is chamomile not black and scalds down her throat but she doesn’t care at all, and then she starts crying again, and there’s Jean Bering getting back up and standing right next to her and pulling her close, going “There, there,” and doing all the things a mom-adjacent figure would do, and the more Helena tries to pull herself together, the more she falls apart. 

There are fingers at her hands, prying them open from where they’re clenched around the teacup, and Helena grasps at them instead, clinging on for dear life. 

When Helena has composed herself enough to consciously realize that she’s clutching Myka’s hands, Myka withdraws them again, and Helena doesn’t understand _why,_ and she wants to cry again, wants to reach out, wants to _beg-_

But then Jean is also moving, as if she, too, has concluded that Helena doesn’t need consoling anymore, and maybe that’s true, maybe that’s how it has to be. Keep calm and all that bollocks.

“Helena, sweetheart,” Jean says, and it’s her hands on Helena’s now, but she doesn’t reciprocate their grip. “Is there anyone we can call? Your parents, maybe?”

“No!” It comes out wild with fear, unthinking with panic. “Goodness, no,” Helena tries to save it. “It’s… it’s… time zones. It’s the wrong time. I’ll, ah, I’ll tell them later.” Not her most convincing lie, but it’ll have to do.

“Of course.” Jean’s fingers squeeze once, briefly. Helena chances a quick look up at her, and sees nothing but kindness in her gaze. “Bed, then?” Jean asks her gently.

And at that, Helena’s eyes fly to Myka’s, and her heart stops and sputters when she sees her panic mirrored in them. Is Myka going to send her away?

“I want some answers before that.” It’s not Myka who says this but her father, standing in the doorway with crossed arms. “Helena, a word, if you please.”

“Warren-” Jean begins, but Helena is already on her feet, walking towards the man and, as he steps back to make way, past him into the living room, where Tracy and Shaw are still sitting where they were sitting however long ago – a quick look to the clock on the mantelpiece says it’s 3:46 am. 

Helena sits down on the edge of the sofa’s seat, hands on her knees and back straight. She doesn’t look at Myka when Myka sits down next to her; hasn’t noticed Myka following her and certainly couldn’t bear knowing her expression right now. Instead, she focuses on Mr. Bering. 

“You are, then?” he says. “Pregnant?” he adds, as if the clarification is necessary.

Helena nods. “Yes sir,” she says tonelessly.

His frown deepens. “Care to explain how? I’m given to understand you’re my daughter’s girlfriend, and unless the definition of that has changed a lot-”

And suddenly Helena understands Myka’s bewilderment. Her stomach lurches painfully. “This happened before,” she says quickly, and hears a sharp intake of air from next to her. “Before I came here. Back… back in England.” She wants to say more, wants to reassure Myka, but before she can get the words aligned, someone else speaks up.

“You didn’t- You weren’t-” Jean’s hand is half-covering her mouth. “This wasn’t… it wasn’t involuntary, was it?”

“No,” Helena says, again very quickly, because Lord, no. “No, it was, uh… it was consensual. A-” she gulps. This is _not_ how she’s envisioned revealing this, not to Myka, much less anyone else. “A hook-up,” she says tonelessly. “I… wanted to- I was so angry. So furious. At my parents, at how… how I always had to be Little Miss Perfect to be shown off at investors’ meetings and networking dinners all the time.” She breathes out a soft laugh. “I thought it would be fitting. Give them the biggest finger I was capable of, not only to be caught doing… that, but while my parents were actually entertaining guests.” She clenches her hands around each other to steady herself and laughs again. It sounds hollow even to herself. “Joke’s on me, isn’t it.”

“That’s why they sent you here,” Myka says, just as quietly; her first words on the matter.

Helena nods, staring blankly ahead. “I never even thought I-” she breaks off, shakes her head. “I’m on the pill, for god’s sake. Have been for years. I _never-_ ” she pinches her lips together, and finds she’s shaking again. Then a thought hits her and freezes her insides. “Oh god,” she whispers. “I kept taking it. You’re not supposed to take medicine when you’re pregnant, aren’t you? What if I-?”

“Don’t worry,” a voice says hurriedly, and Helena turns to the unexpected speaker. Shaw gives her an awkward little wave. “One… one of my aunties is a doula. A birth helper, bit like a midwife? I know some things, through that. And, um, that’s one of them. She says it’s a common misconception, about the pill. It happens a lot that people inadvertently keep taking it, and they’re all fine. The babies too.”

Helena has never heard Shaw say this many words. “Thank you,” she says. Shaw’s words have helped that immediate worry, but her teeth still chatter as she closes her mouth, and she feels dizzy, as though the room is somehow turning around her. Everyone is looking at her. _Everyone._ Everyone is judging, waiting for the right moment to deliver the verdict. 

She wishes they would just get it over with. Maybe she should just leave on her own terms, not give them the satisfaction of kicking her out on top of everything else, but her feet won’t move and she’s not sure her legs would carry her.

And then hands wrap around hers, and they’re shaking too but they’re warm, and deliberate, and maybe not everyone is judging her – or maybe the verdict is in her favor.

She looks at Myka and back down at their entwined hands, at strong and unwavering wrists and forearms emerging from rolled-up sleeves of a shirt Myka wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for her, a shirt Myka is wearing for her, picked out this morning with Helena in mind, this morning when everything was different. Helena’s tears spill over again, and so do her words, because she’d almost forgotten she wanted to say them and now they rush out in a last-minute bid to make her case. “I would _never-_ Myka, if I’d known, I would have told you, please, you have to believe me. I’d never lie to you or betray you, I promise, I swear, Myka, please-”

“I know,” Myka says, and the image of Han Solo, nerf herder, comes unbidden, and Helena wants Myka to smile and call her that, because maybe that would make all of this alright somehow. “I know, Helena.” 

The words are expressionless; Helena has no idea what Myka is thinking. Don’t say ‘but’, her thoughts chant. Don’t say ‘but’, don’t say ‘but’, don’t say ‘but’.

“I’m… I’m processing,” Myka says instead, and that’s not a ‘but’. “It’s good to know… good to know you didn’t… you know. Ch-” She almost chokes on the word; sets her jaw and tries again, “Cheat.”

“I would never.”

“I know.” Myka sits there for a moment, eyes roaming Helena’s face, falling to their clasped hands, glancing over the rest of the silent judges. “And I promised you something too, and I still stand by it,” she says finally, and now her eyes alight on Helena’s, earnest and clear. “I am still on your side. I’m still in your corner. Whatever happens next, I’ll be there. I pro-”

“Are you out of your mind, kid?”

“Warren-”

“No!” he exclaims over his wife’s interjection, sitting forward in his chair and raising his hands towards Myka imploringly. “Myka. You’re infatuated with this girl, okay, I get that, fine. But haven’t you always told me you weren’t interested in that kind of thing? Relationships and whatnot? And now, what, along comes this girl, out of nowhere I might add, and suddenly you’re making the kind of vows people usually drop to one knee for? What about the part where she’s pregnant from some random guy has passed you by, kid? This isn’t a girl who-”

 _“Careful,”_ Myka snaps to interrupt him, and her voice is flat-out deadly, “what you say next, Dad.” He inhales in stark affront, and his eyes flare a warning, but Myka goes on, implacable and undeterred. “Because seriously, you thinking you have any idea of who Helena is or isn’t is ridiculous.” Her hands that tightened around Helena’s as Warren spoke now soften somewhat but don’t let go. “I do,” she says, a bit gentler, still very decisive. “And that is exactly why I’m reaffirming my promise. I’m not _making_ it, Dad; I made it long ago. What I am saying is that this is _one_ thing that tonight _hasn’t_ changed, not for Helena and not for-”

“Oh please. You don’t have the slightest idea what this changes, kid.” Warren Bering’s voice is withering. “Do you think teen pregnancy is a _game?_ A laugh? Do you-”

“Warren!” The renewed interjection rings out unexpectedly, after the first was brushed off so coldly. Helena wouldn’t have clocked Jean Bering as even remotely capable of delivering this kind of tone of voice, much less after she’s already been reproached. “It is four in the morning,” Jean continues. “We’re all of us dead on our feet. This is not the time.” She sighs deeply, and runs her hands up and down her thighs again, then grabs her knees. “What we’ll do, alright, is we’ll get some sleep, have a good breakfast, and then think it over. There is nothing, _nothing,”_ she repeats with a sharp look at her husband who clenches his mouth shut when it skewers him, “that can be done now, nothing that needs to be decided right this minute. Bed, sleep, food, then talk. Myka, sweetheart,” she goes on, and now her voice is all kindness again, “I’ll wake you guys at ten for the appointment, will that be early enough?”

“Appointment?” Myka sounds like she’s drawing a complete blank.

“Helena’s appointment?” Jean prompts. “With Doctor Calder?”

Truth be told, Helena had forgotten about it, too. Yes, she remembers, she has an appointment with Myka’s gynecologist tomorrow. She almost laughs – she was going to get a new prescription for her pill. But good timing, right? And… and she isn’t being kicked out. Right? She isn’t. She clings to that like she still clings to Myka’s hands.

Myka starts. “Oh. Yes. Yeah. God, I’d forgotten. Yeah, that’ll be plenty of time. Thank you, Mom.”

“Myka is glitching,” Tracy tells Shaw in a stage whisper. “First she bluescreened this afternoon, and now she’s fully out of character, going after Dad like that and forgetting doctor’s appointments. We need to run a-”

Shaw elbows her into silence. “Shut up, Trace; she just learned her girlfriend’s pregnant. People are allowed to glitch when that happens.”

And that’s the last word of the night. By unspoken consent, Helena gets first use of the bathroom; she’s back in Myka’s room not fifteen minutes after Jean’s outburst, sitting on the mattress on the floor, knees at her chest and arms around them, staring into the void as she waits for Myka. 

She can’t forget about Jean’s question from earlier – her parents mustn’t know. Not now, that much is certain; she needs to think this over first, needs to figure out what she’s going to do. Maybe not ever – she could just disappear into the US, like Charles has. 

Charles! 

Unseeingly, unthinkingly, her fingers reach for her phone, open a new email, address it to him. 

_I have to talk to you. UTHB_

She attaches her phone number and hits send before she can think twice. This is the only way to contact him that she has, and suddenly, for the first time in years, she wonders if the account is even still active, or if he’s moved beyond this last connection too. Then she puts her phone away, buries it deep in her bag, because she can’t dwell on that on top of everything else; it’ll drive her round the bend. 

There’s a knock on the door and Myka’s back, out of her blue shirt and in her pajamas, and with her the most awkward silence Helena has ever found herself in. 

Myka breaks it with a small cough. “Mom caught me on the way here,” she says, words softened by her bite guard. “Said that the ‘no talking till tomorrow’ goes for us too, for our own sakes.” She is quiet for a moment, then adds, “I think she has a point.”

“She does,” Helena says with a rush of gratitude. She’s been dreading any kind of conversation.

Myka flops down on her bed, rolls over until she’s lying belly-down on it. Pulls off her glasses and puts them on her bedside table in jerky, uncoordinated movements. “I’ve never stayed up this late. I feel drunk. Like everything’s spinning.”

“Put your hand on something solid,” Helena says without even pondering it. “The side of your bed, or the wall.”

Myka’s arm swings out erratically and lands on the Wonder Woman poster with a slap. “How’s that supposed to help?”

She sounds petulant, but she did what Helena suggested without a sliver of hesitation, and both taken together are just a little bit adorable. Helena almost smiles. “It’s supposed to tell your brain that the room is not, in fact, spinning. It’s what Charles told me to do when he caught me getting into bed drunk and I complained about the same thing.”

“Okay.” Myka sounds half-asleep already. Then her head flops over, and she blinks at Helena in the light of her bedside lamp. “D’you think you’ll be able to sleep?”

Helena almost laughs. “No.” The word sounds bitter. It tastes bitter, but then everything has since the champagne.

“C’mere?” It’s a question, and the way Myka rolls over and lifts her sheets is an invitation, nothing more. 

Helena could decline. In some alternate reality, perhaps. In this one, she climbs in, and lets Myka wrap herself around her back, accepts Wilbur being stuffed into her arms, and turns off the light. 

She’s asleep in moments, and it seems like only a few more moments later that she hears a knock on the door and Jean’s voice calling quietly. “Girls? You need to wake up.”

Behind Helena, Myka stirs. It’s a peculiar feeling – Helena has never had someone wake up behind her before. The arm that Myka has thrown across Helena’s waist tightens, then Myka’s body stills. “Helena?”

Helena hums. “I’m awake.” Point five seconds, just like in the good old days. Certainly awake enough to remember what happened yesterday – or rather, earlier today.

“Plug your ear,” Myka murmurs. Then, “We’re up,” she calls out, in that strange half-loud, half-subdued volume people use when the rest of the house is still asleep.

Helena, who has not covered her ear, feels like laughing and crying at the same time. Feels all over the place as her thoughts start to carousel again. It would have been nice to have a moment, just a moment, of not having to think about… all of it. To just relax in Myka’s arms, hang on to a stuffed toy, and let the world pass her by.

The kitchen shows signs of at least one other person having had breakfast already – of course; the store is open from ten. Myka’s father, probably. Hopefully they won’t run into him; yesterday was awkward enough. 

“Helena, dear, what can I get you for breakfast? Myka, your granola is already over there.” Jean points to a bowl while she clears away the two used plates. 

“Tea, please,” Helena says. 

“White, two sugars, was it?”

“One sugar, please.”

“Of course, silly me. Anything to eat at all? Bit of oatmeal, perhaps? Granola, like Myka?”

The thought of food, any food, does not appeal right now. Helena shakes her head. “Just tea, please.”

“So polite.” Jean smiles at her, pats her arm as she passes her by. “Coming right up, sweetheart. Sit down, sit down.”

Myka doesn’t seem to be very enthusiastic about eating her breakfast either. She hasn’t said much this morning, just the necessary words to negotiate who uses the bathroom first and second, but the looks she is casting Helena’s way are open, unguarded, and if anything, pensive rather than doubtful. Still processing, they say, and Helena remembers yesterday’s promise, or reaffirmation of a much earlier promise, and tries to take heart. 

Once in the car, Myka sits there for a moment. Then she turns to Helena. “Have you thought about your license?” she asks, as if _that_ is the thing to ask right now. But then she follows that with, “You know, in case you’re going through with this, I think it’s a good thing to have a valid license and at least access to a car, if not your own actual car. That’s why I’m asking,” and Helena really should have known better than to think Myka would ask something unrelated. 

“You’re right,” she tells Myka, “and I picked a driving school. I just haven’t contacted them yet.”

“Okay,” Myka nods, dropping the matter as if that’s all that was important, and puts her fingers on the keys in her ignition. “Ready?”

Helena gives a wild giggle. “No, but will that help me?”

The smile she gets from Myka in return is crooked, tentative, but it’s there. Once they’re out of the allotted parking and onto the major streets, Myka holds out her right hand, hovers it over Helena’s left which is clamped to Helena’s thigh. It’s an offer, just like sharing a bed was, and Helena jumps to take it, turning over her hand and opening her fingers. Myka’s hand is clammy today, but just as deliberate as it was last night.

I’m here, it says. You’re not alone. 

Or maybe that’s just what Helena wants it to say; maybe it’s just wishful thinking. But Myka promised. Promised, reaffirmed, stared down her father over it. That has to mean something, surely?

It seems to take no time at all until they’re pulling into a parking lot of a building that looks more like a business building than a doctor’s office or clinic. Myka leads Helena in, up a flight of stairs, through a door into a reception area that looks clean but cozy. Not sterile; not a lot of white or metal. Soft colors and textures, flowers in pots, art on the walls. It’s nice. But it doesn’t do anything for Helena’s tension.

“Helena Wells,” she tells the receptionist. “I have an appointment at eleven?”

“Oh, yes, you’re the new patient,” the receptionist says at once and holds out a clipboard with a form already attached and a pen dangling from a piece of string. “Could you please fill this out for me? Dr. Calder will be with you in a moment; the waiting room is two doors down on your left. And good morning, Ms. Bering!”

Myka looks startled, then smiles back tersely. “Good morning,” she says, as if she’s confused by the concept but game to play along.

She’s also a leg-bouncer. Helena knew this before, but today, here in the (thankfully empty) waiting room, it’s driving her up the walls. She longs to put a hand on Myka’s thigh to still it, but she needs her left to keep the clipboard steady and her right to write on it. 

And there it is. 

_‘Are you currently pregnant? Yes/no.’_

Helena’s gulp is audible, and for a moment, as her pen hovers, even Myka’s leg stills. 

She ticks ‘yes’, and the leg starts bouncing again. 

And of course when Doctor Calder calls them in – or rather, calls Helena in, who flat-out pulls Myka in with her because going in there on her own is _not_ an option – that question is where Doctor Calder’s eyes pause and grow ever so slightly wider than before.

“Seems something has changed between your calling for an appointment and today,” she says. 

She looks kind, and just like the building and her office she looks nothing like a doctor, in her jeans and soft pink knitted sweater over a button-up. She is smiling; her eyes are blue and free of judgement. 

Helena squirms. “I… discovered that I’m pregnant. Yesterday. Six tests,” she adds, “all with the same result.”

“I take it your pregnancy was unplanned.”

Helena nods. She really doesn’t want to go into details. Myka’s hand, which she hasn’t let got since grabbing it in the waiting room, tightens around hers.

Doctor Calder nods, too, and leaves it at that. She takes out a notepad and pen and writes down Helena’s name at the top. “I would like to ask you some questions,” she says, “to get a better idea of how far along in the pregnancy you are, and what my next steps as your obstetrician will be. You don’t need to answer any of them, but the more I understand, the better the care I can offer you. Alright?”

Helena nods, but before Doctor Calder can go on, Myka speaks up. “May I ask a question before you start?”

“Sure,” Doctor Calder smiles at her. 

Myka straightens in her seat, a very serious expression on her face. She never lets go of Helena’s hand, though. “Will Helena’s parents be billed for this? Will they see what kind of treatment she received? Will you disclose any of this to them, unprompted or if they ask?”

Doctor Calder’s eyebrows rise. “That depends on a few factors.” She turns to Helena again. “Did your parents take out an insurance for your stay abroad?”

“I… don’t know.” And now Helena feels extremely stupid. “They didn’t say.” And she probably should have asked. Just like she should have asked the questions Myka has put to the doctor.

Doctor Calder nods slowly. “I see. Well, we’ll figure that one out, don’t worry. As for which information I do or do not disclose – is there a reason why you would not want your parents to know?”

“I… They…” Helena stutters and falls silent. Where would she even begin? And to a stranger, no less, no matter how kind her smile is.

“Abuse and neglect,” Myka says bluntly. The words hit Helena’s gut, five syllables she’s never even thought to apply to her situation before. 

Doctor Calder’s eyes land on Myka briefly, then return to Helena. “I understand.” She puts down the pen she’s been holding and folds her hands over the paper, giving Helena her full attention. “Ms. Wells, everything we talk about and do in here can be completely confidential if you so wish. As a medical professional, the law gives me that leeway. As far as the bill for this visit, tell you what – I’ll go with what your appointment says: general examination of a first-time patient. It’s not even a lie,” she adds with a small smile. “I’ll give it to you when you leave, and then you can figure out who you’re insured with and forward it to them, or contact me if it turns out you’re not insured, so that we can see what we can do about payment. How does that sound?”

Helena shrugs and nods and bites the inside of her cheek. Her guts are still churning, her thoughts still reeling with Myka’s words, but the doctor’s calm demeanor helps her focus. 

“Alright.” Doctor Calder picks up her pen again. “Like I said, I would like to start out with a few questions. I’ll tell you why I’m asking each one, and you can decide if you want to answer, alright?”

Helena nods again. 

“Excellent. Now, first – can you tell me when this happened? If yes, that is a good way to know how far along you are and what state of development to expect.”

Helena takes a deep breath and throws Myka a furtive look. “September second,” she says.

Myka’s jaw slackens slightly, and Helena understands why – that date is less than a week before Helena sat in Mrs. Lattimer’s classroom for the first time. Less than a _week._ That’s all the time Helena’s parents needed to completely uproot her life.

Her mother had hysterics. She kept screaming that she never wanted to lay eyes on Helena again. It’s probably why it happened so fast.

Helena probably shouldn’t think of that right now.

She gives Myka an apologetic smile while Doctor Calder notes this down and counts weeks on a calendar next to her keyboard.

“That would place you in week twelve now,” the doctor announces, and looks up again, head tilted. “If you want, I can explain the developmental stage of the fetus at this point; some patients prefer not to, though, when they’re undecided if they want to carry the baby to term, or if they’re already decided on an abortion.”

“No!” Helena says, shying from the thought of termination so viscerally, so vehemently, that both Doctor Calder and Myka start. “I… I couldn’t. Couldn’t have an abortion.” She shakes her head, hoping that she’s not going to be asked why or how, and thankfully, Doctor Calder simply nods and goes in a different direction.

“That is a perfectly acceptable decision to make. I will add that you don’t even need to make this decision now; Colorado law has no gestational limit on abortion. I also need to tell you that as a minor, you’d have to obtain permission from at least one parent or guardian. That can be circumvented, though, by judicial bypass – or,” the doctor adds, checking her clipboard, “you wait until after January fourth. Just putting all your options on the table,” she says with a quick smile. “Not trying to dissuade you. What I _am_ saying is that right now there’s a massive amount of new information to take in and things to understand and decide. And some of these decisions are immediate and some aren’t, and _that_ one is one you can ponder for a bit longer. I would ask you to take the time you need for it, because it is a far-reaching choice either way, but that is all I will say on the matter. Unless you’d like my advice, in which case just ask. Alright?”

Helena nods. She has no intention at all to change her decision; her nod is more for the doctor to leave this topic be.

“Good. Now, have you felt any aches or pains? Cramping? Any nausea, dizziness, any bleeding or spotting?”

“I vomited a few times when I came here,” Helena tells her, going through the same list in her mind she was pondering yesterday. “Back in September. I felt queasy the whole time, but I told myself I was starting in a new school; a bit of nausea was only to be expected. Plus, the food here is different than what I’m used to. I figured that was what was wrong, nothing else. And later we thought that it might have been me acclimating to the altitude.”

Doctor Calder nods as she jots down notes. “Could have been any of that, could have been implantation, morning sickness, or a mix of everything, yes. Go on?”

“I caught a stomach bug in early October,” Helena continues. “That’s what I thought at least. I couldn’t stand the thought of any kind of food but tea and toasted bread, so that’s what I had for six days. And then it got better, so I thought I was over the bug. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I realized that my… um, my breasts were growing.” She shoots another quick glance at Myka, because she remembers how her comment on the matter threw Myka off, but Myka doesn’t look discomfited – she looks concentrated, right down to the wrinkle between her eyebrows.

And she has something to say. “It was two weeks after your stomach bug that you first mentioned it. Definitely still in October, not November.” 

Helena raises her eyebrows, but knows better to ask if Myka is sure. She can’t well argue with someone with eidetic memory, can she? So she simply nods. “I did end up buying new bras last week,” she adds. “That’s also about the time when I thought I was having another growth spurt – you know, the kind of aches you get from those?”

“Haven’t had one of those in a while,” Doctor Calder says dryly, “but yes, they can feel the same. Where in your body would you say did you have those aches?”

“My back, my breasts, my thighs a bit.” Helena frowns as she goes through her memories. “My belly too, but I thought those were just untimely period cramps.” She shakes her head and scowls, angry at herself. “Lord, I am so stupid.”

“Not at all,” Doctor Calder says firmly. “You didn’t expect this, that’s all. From the sound of it, you’ve had an easy pregnancy so far, and all the explanations you gave just now sound perfectly reasonable to me. Certainly not stupid.” She smiles again – her smile is nice, kind, warm. “You’re not the first person not to notice right away, and you certainly won’t be the last. Guaranteed.” She emphasizes the last word with three taps of her fingernail against the notepad, one for each syllable. Then, with a more serious expression, she goes on, “Now, I’ve gathered that your past few months have been… eventful, what with coming to a new country and all that, so I realize it might be hard to tell, but do you think you’ve had any unexpected or inexplicable emotional reactions? Moments when you felt imbalanced or unable to cope, more so than usual?”

Helena scoffs, but softly. Hard to tell is about right. Myka squeezes her hand, just as softly, in encouragement. Still, Helena can’t look at Doctor Calder when she answers. “I’ve… cried. A lot. But… I suppose that isn’t all that unusual, considering.” Again, Myka’s fingers tighten, and this time they stay that way. And annoyingly, that brings tears to Helena’s eyes yet again. 

“Not unusual at all,” Doctor Calder says warmly. “Okay, last, I have a few questions about things like your vaccinations, your medical history, your family’s medical history. Whatever you remember or can tell me can help me assess risks for you and the baby during this pregnancy, okay?”

There aren’t a lot of answers Helena can provide here beyond childhood diseases she went through and that she’s had the MMR vaccine – that’s something all of her various gynecologists have asked in the past, so that’s something she remembers. She has no idea if her mother has had easy pregnancies or not, much less any other family member, or if anyone has a history of high or low blood pressure… these things weren’t really talked about in the Wells household. 

At last, Doctor Calder puts her pen down. “Alright, your honor, the cross examination is done.” She smiles at Helena and Myka. “Thank you for going along with all of these questions, Ms. Wells. Now, to get an even better understanding of you and your baby’s current health and future development, I’d like to get both a blood and a urine sample, take a few measurements, and do an ultrasound. You are free to refuse any of these, of course; the reason why I’m asking for them is that the two samples will tell me if there are any imbalances we need to address, the measurements will be used as a baseline for the future, and the ultrasound will allow both of us to look at the fetus and see if it is growing as it should.” Her smile widens into a conspiratorial grin. “It might be a bit too early to tell, but sometimes you can already make out the baby’s sex at twelve weeks.”

“I know,” Helena grates. She feels sick at the thought of finding out – again, a visceral reaction.

“Would you like to know?”

Helena’s answer is immediate, straight from her gut. “No.”

“Sure,” Doctor Calder says, “no problem. I’ll make a note of it.” And she does, and again does not ask why. “Typically, a first examination would also include a pelvic exam, but…” she tilts her head and scrutinizes Helena for a moment with her kind eyes. “This is all a lot already, I’m sure, so if it would help, we can push that one to your next visit, if you like.”

Helena shudders in relief. “Yes please,” she says, and it comes out hoarse.

The doctor jots down another note. “Alrighty. Now – how about the rest? Again, you can agree or refuse to any-”

Helena shrugs. She might as well. “Yes, I suppose.”

Doctor Calder gets up and gestures towards the exam table-

And Helena can’t move a single limb.

She’s shivering again, once more to the point where her teeth chatter when she tries to say something. And then Myka is there, standing next to her chair and pulling her close, and Helena leans into the offered strength, the offered warmth, even if it’s stiffer than what she’s used to. Helena sucks in breath after breath when Myka prompts her to, mortified that they sound like sobs when her eyes and cheeks are dry. 

“I swear… this isn’t…,” Helena gasps out in between breaths. “I just… This is all…”

“Don’t worry, Ms. Wells,” Doctor Calder says from off to the side, and her voice is low and soothing. “It is all a bit much, isn’t it? That’s alright. We’ve got time. Don’t worry.”

It takes Helena a few more minutes, and maybe a bit more than she would have allowed herself without the doctor’s reassurance, before she makes it over to the table. And still Myka’s hand is in hers, and Myka at her side. Stiff, perhaps, yes, but she’s there.

“Probably best to wait for a bit to take your blood pressure,” Doctor Calder says with a wink, and points to a set of vials instead. “Is starting with the blood sample okay with you?”

Helena nods and holds out her arm. It’s Myka who hisses when the needle goes in, and Helena looks up at her in surprise. 

“I hate needles,” Myka says with an embarrassed shrug. “You alright?”

Helena nods again. Myka’s reaction, for some odd reason, reassures her. Enough so that going to the loo to give a urine sample is something she can do without holding her girlfriend’s hand – although they do reach for each other the moment Helena is back from the bathroom. 

“Let’s check your measurements next,” Doctor Calder says and gestures Helena towards two scales at the far wall, one for her weight and one for her height. The doctor also measures the circumference of her stomach, and notes down the numbers carefully. Then she gestures Helena over to the table again to take her blood pressure. “Well within the normal,” she announces in the end, “all looking good so far. For the ultrasound, I’d like to start out with your abdomen. No need to go over to the chair,” she adds with a smile. “A transvaginal ultrasound is really only necessary if I can’t get a clear enough picture through the abdominal one.” She looks very briefly at Myka, at their two hands. “I can work with you staying here, Myka, if you and Ms. Wells are both okay with that.”

Again, Helena looks up at Myka. “Stay? Please?” Then she holds her breath. She’s quite certain Myka hasn’t made up her mind yet about what to think, and she doesn’t know if her reaffirmed promise can take the strain right now.

Myka dithers for a moment, but then nods. “Sure.”

Helena breathes out.

“Excellent,” the doctor says, sounding unaware of what just happened. “Just pull up a chair and stay up there at the head end, Myka.” Then she proceeds to instruct Helena in precisely what item of clothing she needs to push where.

The gel is cold, making Helena’s breath hitch and her heart jump into her throat. This isn’t her first ultrasound, but-

The monitor springs into life, and there’s-

Helena’s thoughts sputter to a halt. 

There’s a-

Oh god.

The ringing in her ears is back, and her eyes are glued to the little black and white monitor and the-

Oh god.


	28. Myka

Myka stares at the picture on the screen, at the small dark cave among the gray, at the little being inside of it. 

It’s for real. 

There’s a hand touching her arm, and when her eyes fly towards Doctor Calder who’s reached out, the doctor casts a significant glance down at Helena. Myka immediately sees why; Helena is going to pieces. Her hand has Myka’s in a death grip, and her eyes are bottomless, glued to the screen as her mouth quivers around inaudible words. 

“Hey,” Myka says, leaning forward into Helena’s field of vision enough to hopefully catch her attention; all Helena does is crane her neck to not lose sight of the screen. “Hey, Helena, it’s alright. It’s alright.” This is worse than earlier in the visitors’ chairs; Helena doesn’t seem to listen, won’t look away from the monitor. 

“I don’t think stopping the ultrasound is the right thing to do right now, as fixated as she is,” Doctor Calder says in a low voice. “I’ll keep the picture up; you talk to her, Myka, alright? Let’s see if we can bring her out of it.”

And so Myka talks, just like earlier, just phrases and things, until with a deep shudder, Helena says, “Oh my god,” out loud a few moments later.

“Welcome back,” Doctor Calder greets her with a smile, and Myka takes a deep breath and tells her shoulders to relax. “Yes, this is your baby,” the doctor goes on. “He or she is about as large as a lime right now.” She holds up a hand approximating the size with first finger and thumb in a loose ring. “And he or she looks perfectly healthy.”

“It’s moving,” Helena whispers. 

“Sure is.” Doctor Calder says warmly. “Probably a bit chilly from the gel – no, I’m just kidding, they can’t feel that. But he or she might have become excited along with you. Don’t worry about it, though,” she adds. “It isn’t harmful for either of you, with the exception of high stress over a prolonged period of time. _That_ is something you should try to avoid as much as possible. Other than that, absolutely allow yourself your whole range of emotions, alright?” 

Helena is silent for a long while before nodding. “I’ll try.”

And it’s those two words that make Myka well up. She knows how precarious Helena’s emotional state can be – okay, yes, so she now knows that she _only_ knows Helena in an emotional state that is _also_ influenced by pregnancy hormones, but still. She _knows._ And those two little words, uttered in this brave little soldier voice, just make her want to wrap Helena up in all the warm blankets in the world and bring her chicken noodle soup and white tea, one sugar, or whatever her pregnant self might crave.

Myka has tried to parse this; has been trying all day. Has looked and looked hard for a way to deal with it. And she’s nowhere near an answer, but this… this _urge_ comes natural, to protect Helena, to be at her side, to help her get through this.

Through her pregnancy. Helena is _pregnant._ There’s a baby on that screen, a baby that’s _in Helena’s body,_ a baby about as large as a lime, a baby that’s twitching his or her arms slightly and opening and closing her or his mouth. 

There’s a little patch of gray in the baby’s body that oscillates wildly – a heart. Doctor Calder does something to the ultrasound machine and the beat sounds out loud and clear; it’s fast, so fast, but she says that’s normal. As Doctor Calder moves the sensor, limbs and facial features and even skeletal structures become visible and vanish again, and for long minutes the doctor zooms in and explains and screenshots and measures and-

Holy shitballs.

This is a _baby._

“Do you want a printout?” Doctor Calder is asking Helena. “Or a digital picture? I can even get you a video on this machine.” She sounds proud.

“Yes.” Helena laughs, a little breathless, a little helpless, a little wild. “Yes, please.”

“All of the above?” 

“Yes. Please.” 

Doctor Calder taps a few commands into the keyboard and then gets up. “I’ll go get your copies, and Darlene will have a flash drive ready for you when you leave,” she says, pointing to the door. “I’ll be back in a few moments. Oh, and you can get up and get dressed now, please. There are paper towels over there to clean yourself up.” 

The monitor is black now – which makes sense; the sensor is no longer on Helena’s belly, no longer picking anything up. It drives home that that wasn’t just a video, though. That was what is going on inside Helena. That was the baby that is growing inside Helena.

Helena’s movements as she reaches for the towels are slow, angular, far less graceful than what Myka is used to see. She wipes the gel off herself jerkily, mechanically, and without thinking Myka reaches out with a paper towel of her own to catch what Helena is missing. 

Helena gets up from the table to tuck her shirt into her pants and then stands there, looking down at herself. She untucks the shirt again, unzips her pants again, looks at her stomach. Looks up at Myka with furrowed brows. “It doesn’t look like I’m pregnant. Does it?”

Myka shakes her head. “Not that I can see, no,” she says. “But I have no idea when… you know. When it starts to show.”

“I can’t feel anything, either,” Helena says quietly, hands flat on her skin. “Earlier, on the screen, when… when the baby moved, I thought I could feel it, but… but now I can’t.”

“Well, maybe he or she isn’t moving right now.”

“Maybe. Yes. I wish I…” Helena’s hands cup her abdomen skin on skin. Then she drops them again, shrugs her shoulders. Bursts into tears. 

With a soft exclamation, Myka steps into Helena’s space and opens her arms, and sure enough, a moment later Helena crashes into her – just stumbles close and lets Myka wrap her in an embrace. Her hands fidget at Myka’s sides for a moment, then find the bottom of Myka’s sweater and hold on tight, just as they did at Pete’s wrestling meet. 

“It’s okay,” Myka whispers, holding Helena tight. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. _You’ll_ figure this out, and I’ll be here for you. It’ll be okay.” It’s not her preferred way of doing things, figuring them out as she goes, but it’s what you say in a situation like this, right? And somehow, it feels right. They’ve gotten good at figuring out their relationship; they can figure this out too, Myka is convinced of it.

Helena is shaking with sobs, and Myka slowly shifts her weight, slowly walks the two of them back the one step to the exam table. When it bumps into Helena’s rear end, Helena sits against it immediately, and her sobs become deeper, looser, less restrained. “I don’t know how to do this,” she says into Myka’s shoulder, her voice thick and agonized.

“That’s what we’ll figure out, then,” Myka tells her. “I mean Doctor Calder said your baby looks perfectly healthy, so that’s good, right? Even when you didn’t know, it turned out fine. And the rest- the rest we’ll figure out. You’ll see.” She tries to imbue her words with as much reassurance as she can, even if her own thoughts are running wild with hows and what ifs and thens. 

Helena drowns a hollow laugh in Myka’s shoulder, but at least her sobs have subsided. “You’re good at pep talks.”

“Well, I _was_ captain of the fencing team.”

“Of course.” Helena stays leaned against Myka for a moment longer, then squares her shoulders with a deep breath. “Any of those paper towels left?” She cleans her face with the one that Myka grabs for her, then straightens her clothes again. 

And as if she can read minds, that’s when Doctor Calder reappears. “Knock, knock,” she calls out, and holds up two stacks of paper. “Here are your printouts. I got you two copies, one for each of you; if you need only one, just toss the other.”

Myka blinks. So far, she hadn’t even thought about what Doctor Calder might or might not think about her, Myka’s, presence during all of this, about Helena clinging to her hand like she did, about Myka talking Helena down like she did – but if Doctor Calder has, somehow, come to the right conclusion, she doesn’t seem to mind. Right? That’s what two sets of prints mean. Because who else would you give a second set of this kind of printout to?

Okay, so… so Myka… Myka is not… not the father. She’s just the girlfriend of a girl who happens to be pregnant. Right? That doesn’t… that doesn’t make her… make her anything with regards to the-

Or does it?

Christ, so far Myka’s thoughts have revolved around _Helena_ and being there for her and what that might look like during senior year, both for Helena and for herself, but-

That’s probably what Dad was shouting about yesterday. Right?

Oh god.

Myka numbly takes the pages that Doctor Calder is holding out to her. There are four screenshots, two on each page, a big head and a big tummy and a leg and half an arm in this one, the same head and the same tummy and half a leg and one full arm in the next one, and dotted lines across the baby’s body in another, with numbers in the corner. 

“Two and one eighth inches,” Doctor Calder says, and Myka looks up. “Well within normal parameters. You’re doing a great job,” she tells Helena with a smile, then holds up a small leaflet and a small, pastel-colored bottle of pills. “Now, I’ve got here a brochure for do’s and don’ts during pregnancy and some prenatal vitamins I’d like you to take from now on; they’re available in any drugstore once you finish these. You can pick any brand; just make sure the ingredients are the same, and call me if you’re not sure. I’ll have your lab results probably on Wednesday afternoon, Thursday at the latest – would you like me to call you, or send you a text so that you can call me to talk them over? You said you were in Myka’s class in school, right? I wouldn’t want to call you in the middle of a lesson,” she adds with a chuckle. 

“Um, t-text is fine,” Helena stutters. And then she blanches and reaches for her bag, digs out her phone and groans. She mutters something under her breath, then drops the phone back again. “Sorry,” she says, straightening, “I just… saw that I missed a… a call.”

“No problem at all,” Doctor Calder says with a wave of her hand. “Once I’ve got the lab results, we’ll know if there are any additional changes you could or should make to your diet to keep you and the baby healthy and happy. And please, if you have questions or if you’re worried about something, call me any time of day and night, okay? I know how overwhelming and confusing this is right now, and I want you to know that, one, _everything is fine_ with you and with your baby, and two, you are not alone.” She nods her chin at Myka with a smile. “You’ve got Myka here, and if I know the Berings at all, you’ve got Jean in your corner as well. You’ve got me, for every medical question that comes up. And if you need other kinds of support, like counseling, or Child Protection Services, I can help you access them, too. Alright? _You’re not alone._ Please remember that.” 

Helena nods, another brave little soldier gesture.

“In the meantime,” Doctor Calder says, inviting them to sit in the visitors’ chairs again, “let me tell you what changes to expect in the next days and weeks.”

Five seconds into the doctor’s explanations, Myka asks if she can have the notepad and pen. Doctor Calder grins as she hands them over, but hand them over she does, and at the end of her lecture, she mentions a few books that Myka writes down too.

“I would also recommend,” Doctor Calder says, “that you look for a pregnancy class and/or perhaps a doula, to help you prepare for the reality of having a child around. I have a few brochures out in the reception area; all of those I can personally vouch for.” She pauses for a bit, as if she’s weighing her words, then continues, “Perhaps also consider finding a therapist as well. Pregnancy is a big upheaval, and an unexpected pregnancy even more so, especially for someone who’s still underage – if only for another few months,” she adds with a smile. “As much as I respect that you’re almost a legal adult, Ms. Wells, please don’t get me wrong when I say that _physically_ your body isn’t quite done developing; your brain and your hormones are not fully in balance yet. And now they’re being thrown out of whack on yet another level. That’s bound to be a challenge, and having an expert on that on your side – not just an obstetrician – can only help.”

Helena looks conflicted as she nods, and Myka files that away for later. She thinks that Doctor Calder’s advice sounds sensible; hell, _she_ would like to have an expert to talk to right now.

Helena is silent as they leave the practice. In the car, she turns to Myka. “Can we… is there a place where we can… just _be_ for a moment? I know the school is closed over the holiday, but Lord would I love to be in the attic right now.”

Myka considers this for a moment, then nods and turns on the car. “There’s an amusement park nearby that shut down this fall. Parking lot’s still open.”

“Sounds good.” That’s all Helena says until Myka pulls into said parking lot a few minutes later and cuts off the engine again. Helena is looking out the window, nibbling on one finger, tapping the fingers of her other hand on her thigh until Myka reaches out and grasps them.

“Talk to me?” 

Helena is silent for a few breaths longer, her gaze still fixed on gray asphalt. Then she says, with a huffed laugh, “I have no idea where to begin.”

“Does it matter?” Myka asks. “I mean you can just backtrack when you run into something and realize you should have started with something else.”

“Stop being so reasonable!” Helena turns to Myka. “I… I put you through… _all_ of _that,_ and you’re… you’re being… _reasonable!_ Why aren’t you freaking out? Why- what- I don’t understand; why aren’t you _angry?”_

“But why would I be?” Myka asks back, truly confused. “You didn’t know. I mean that was pretty self-evident yesterday,” she points out. “You didn’t know, you didn’t lie to me, you didn’t cheat on me – why would I be angry?”

“Because!” Helena snaps, her voice tilting up on the word. “Because you never asked for this! Not for a girlfriend with… with issues, and certainly not for a girlfriend who got knocked up.”

Myka stares at her, lost for words. Helena sounds so… self-loathing. “What are you _talking_ about? Helena, meeting you, falling in love with you: _nothing_ has ever made me happier. Nothing. Okay? And issues? Helena, _everyone_ has issues.”

“But not everyone is pregnant,” Helena says immediately, as if she’s only waited for that argument. 

“So what? I told you, we’ll figure that out, and I mean it. I mean yeah, it’s a big deal-” Helena scoffs bitterly and okay, yeah, she has a point, so Myka amends to, “Okay, alright, it’s a fucking _huge_ deal but… But I mean it happens, right? It’s not like you’re the first seventeen-year-old who got pregnant. It happened, and you want to keep it, and so we’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t see how that follows.” Helena’s words are brief, almost bitten off.

“How what follows?”

“That _I_ got pregnant, and that that means that _we_ will figure it out.” 

Myka stares at Helena. Then she gives a weak laugh. “Is that it?” she asks. “Is that… is that all?” She reaches for Helena’s hands across the center console of the car and boy, does she want to hug her. Barring that, she tries to put into her voice all the emotion she can’t put into a hug right now. “Helena, we’re… You’re my _girlfriend._ I _love_ you. We’re a _team._ You being pregnant _doesn’t change that._ Okay? It doesn’t.”

“Don’t-” Helena tears her eyes away, bites her lip furiously. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she says tonelessly. “Your father was right; you don’t have any idea of what’s going to change. Neither of us do. And I can’t… I can’t ask you to commit yourself to all of those unknowns.”

“I know you’re not asking.” Myka is getting desperate trying to find a way to get this through to Helena. Her thumbs find the backs of Helena’s hands and stroke firmly across them. “Helena, I’m volunteer-”

“But you don’t have any idea what it is exactly that you’re volunteering!” Helena interrupts her frantically. “That’s precisely it, Myka! Will my p-” she stumbles on the word and scowls, “pregnancy continue to be this easy, or will I develop the worst case of morning sickness the world has ever seen, so that I can’t come to school any longer, so that maybe, _maybe_ we see each other a bit in the evenings or on the weekend? And what happens when I start to show, and people start to notice, and point fingers not just at me but at everyone who hangs around with me and might or might not be my girlfriend? And what happens after, when I have an infant that wants feeding every hour of the night and you want to go to college?”

“Helena, I don’t have all the answers yet, okay?” Myka says helplessly. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. That is exactly what I mean with figuring things out, okay? Together. You and me, and whoever else you want to pull in to help. We’ll figure this out. But I’m not leaving you hanging. I’m not.”

“But why?”

Myka bites her lips together to suppress a frustrated groan. “Because I love you! I love you not just when you’re perfect, not just when you do the right things, okay?” Helena’s jaw goes slack and Myka wonders if that is it. If that’s the hang-up. It might be, considering. So she continues, all intent and imploration, thumbs still running across Helena’s hands, “I love you all the time, okay? When you mess up, and when it’s complicated, and when neither of us has all the answers. I love you then, too, not just when everything is easy. And when – _when,_ not if – I mess up, I hope to god you’ll keep loving me too, because that’s what it’s about, isn’t it?”

Helena sways as if Myka’s words are hitting her like blows. Her mouth drops open as if she wants to say something, but she remains silent. Her eyes are brimming with incredulity. 

“I know this is confusing and awful and scary,” Myka goes on, “and I know that you’ve been on your own for forever, but Helena, I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere, okay? So be…” Myka takes a deep breath and hopes that what she’s going to say is the right thing to say. She knows it holds a lot of meaning to Helena, and god, if this is the wrong thing to invoke, then she’ll have messed up _big time._ “Be bold,” she says, holding Helena’s hands tight. “Okay? Trust me. Trust us. Trust this thing between us. Even though we don’t have all the answers yet. Trust that we can figure them out. Trust that I’ll stay with you. Trust that you don’t have to do this on your own. Bering and Wells, remember? Solving this puzzle one day at a time.”

Helena’s eyes are bottomless. Myka has seen her like this before – this is the ‘I don’t dare to want this’ look, and it makes Myka _ache_ for her. Makes her wish that Helena finds it within herself, somewhere, _anywhere,_ to allow herself to reach for this, to even consider that this is hers for the asking. Slowly, Helena disentangles a hand, undoes her seat belt, opens the door. Myka clings to the remaining hand, and Helena smiles, suddenly, and says, “I’m not running,” and squeezes Myka’s hands one last time before getting up and getting out of the car. She rounds the hood of it and opens Myka’s door, and Myka scrambles to get out when Helena gestures for her to do so. 

They’re standing in front of each other now, and it’s a bit too cold to have your coat hang open but Myka never envisioned standing outside of her car in an empty parking lot so she never zipped up and Helena never zips up because apparently it’s more fashionable and-

“Please,” Helena says, and her voice is raw and scratchy.

And Myka has no idea what she’s being asked, so she offers the only thing she can think of and opens her arms. Helena steps into her, leaning her weight on Myka until they both fall against the car. Her hands seek warmth within Myka’s coat and find her sweater hem again. And Myka closes coat and arms around Helena, as tight and warm and reassuring as she can. 

She can feel Helena’s breath on the skin of her neck; cool as it goes in, warm as it goes out. It’s uneven at first, and Helena’s whole body tight and tense, and then, as the seconds tick into minutes, Helena calms. Myka can feel it, every increment of breath evening out and muscles loosening. 

It’s breathtaking and heartbreaking at once. On the one hand, _she_ is doing that; her words, her nearness, her love is making Helena do that. On the other hand, the fact that Helena needs this? 

Myka meant it when she called it ‘abuse and neglect’. Volunteering for the ACLU, she’s seen some of it, because some cases are multi-dimensional, complicated. But she never would have thought she’d ever hold someone, someone so close to her own heart, and have that sheer act of holding make such a difference. 

“Please,” Helena says again, and it sounds like the beginning of something, so Myka answers with a hum of questioning, of encouraging, and Helena goes on, barely audible against Myka’s skin, “Please love me this way. Please.”

“It’s the only way I know how to love you,” Myka says, and it’s simple and it’s true, every word. 

Helena’s exhale is a shudder so bone-deep that it shakes Myka too, a sigh and a whimper all rolled into one. Then she stills again, simply leaning into Myka, as if the mere act of doing so gives her strength. “Thank you,” she whispers, and still she doesn’t move.

“Always,” Myka whispers back. 

And then a buzz sounds in the car, loud enough to startle them both. Myka looks at her watch and swears. “Probably Mom asking where we are.”

Helena shakes her head. “That’s my phone,” she says, and tilts the driver seat forward to dive into the back seat where she’s tossed her bag earlier. “Hello?” Myka hears her answer the call, and then “Ch-Charles!” Her voice goes from incredulous to happy in the space of one single name. Myka makes as if to close the door to give Helena some privacy, but Helena reaches out for her, pulls Myka into the backseat with her, then tilts the passenger seat forward to close that door, so Myka follows suit on her side of the car. 

Hearing Helena’s half of the conversation makes Myka uncomfortable, but Helena is still holding on to her hand, is leaning into her, is tugging Myka’s arm across her shoulder, so what can she do but go along?

“Oh. Oh! Okay. You- goodness! Yes, no, I understand. Charlie – do you spell that- yes, alright. Got it.” Helena scoots even closer, enough so that Myka can make out most of what Charlie is saying. 

“-sure you’re alright.” Charles – or Charlie, apparently – has less of an English accent than Helena has; his vowels and r’s sound more American, from what Myka can tell. “I don’t have much time right now; sound checks are always so chaotic and stressful, but I’ll, ah- oh fuck, hang on-” there’s a rustling, loud enough to make Helena hold the phone away from her ear in distaste, and muffled shouting – probably Charlie covering the speaker and yelling at someone. “Hellbug?” He comes back, and Myka almost chokes on air when Helena says yes, because _what a nickname._ “I need to go, but I’ll call you later today, okay? You’re in the US, right? Or Canada? Anyway, which time zone?”

“Uh…” Helena cranes her neck upwards to look beseechingly at Myka.

“Mountain Standard,” Myka tells her under her breath.

Helena dutifully repeats that to Charlie, and adds, “Colorado.”

“Colorado?! Shit, you gotta tell me all about it, okay? Gotta go. Up theirs, Hellbug.”

“Up theirs, Cha-Cha,” Helena returns, then the line goes dead.

Hellbug. And Cha-Cha. 

Myka does not ask. But apparently, her silence does it for her. “Our nicknames for each other,” Helena says, saving Charlie’s number in her contacts and locking the screen, then turning the phone over and over in her hands. 

“I figured,” Myka says. “They’re good.”

“Thank you,” Helena replies, with dignity. “And ‘up theirs’ is… well. It was us against the world, you know? So that’s what we would tell each other, over and over again.”

“Your catchphrase.”

Myka can feel Helena’s shoulders lift in a shrug. “In a way, yes.”

In the endless twirling of Helena’s phone, Myka sees the time flash at her again and again. “We really should get going,” she says, loath to move a muscle.

“Myka, can I-” The phone twirls a bit faster.

“Yeah?”

“Can I come to your place again?” Helena asks, words slurring into each other in her hurry to get them out. “I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts right now,” she adds, and that’s… interesting. Not what Myka would want in her stead, but they are two different people, after all. “If I was at Mrs. Frederic’s, I’d just go up to my room and… and obsess.”

“Of course,” Myka says immediately. “You ready?” It’s only after the words are out that she remembers she asked Helena the same thing as they set out, and didn’t get too reassuring of a reply. 

“As I’ll ever be,” Helena mutters, and at least that’s not a no this time.


	29. Helena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mention of a suicide attempt

The bookstore is busy when they return, and Helena throws herself into the work, grateful for the distraction and that nobody has time to ask her questions. Shaw’s still there; Pete has indeed come by and stayed to help even though Myka wasn’t there, because that is the kind of guy Pete Lattimer is. When the store closes at six, there are even more empty spots on the shelves, and Jean announces that she’s heading out and will return presently with a big load of buffalo and vegan wings and assorted sides. 

Everyone cheers at that but Helena. She wants… well, it’s not so much ‘want’ as it is the way forward on which she has settled – telling people – which she thinks is the best idea under the circumstances, but that was before Pete figured in the picture. On the other hand, maybe having him on her side too is a good idea, as per what Doctor Calder said. He is a good friend, a good person.

So when everyone has eaten their fill (except Pete, who’s still at it, but if she waits until he’s done, she’ll be here all day, and she doesn’t have the strength for that), she clears her throat. “So, as you all know – except you, Pete; I’ll fill you in later, for now can you just listen?” Mouth full, he nods, so she goes on, “I’m pregnant.” And that’s when Pete, predictably, loses his mouthful. At least he has the wherewithal to direct his outburst into the cardboard food container on his lap. 

“You what?” he asks indistinctly.

“Pete,” Myka says, her voice strangled but patient, _“later._ Just roll with it.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Later!” Myka glares him into submission.

“I’d like to answer your questions,” Helena addresses the room at large – they’re sitting in the living room; the kitchen isn’t large enough to hold them all. 

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to,” Jean says immediately.

Helena shakes her head with pursed lips. “I know what you mean, and thanks for saying that. But I know that when people only have part of the information, they tend to fill in the blanks, even unconsciously, and I’d rather you heard things from me. Judge me on my actual reasons,” she adds, purposely not looking at Warren Bering, “rather than potential assumptions.”

Pete’s mouth is still gaping open, until Myka snaps his name in a loud whisper and glares at him some more.

“How did the appointment go?” Jean asks. A mom-adjacent question, full of solicitousness. 

“Doctor Calder said everything was alright.” The words were reassuring when Helena first heard them, but repeating them out loud is what really makes them stick. She relaxes a little as they settle within her. 

“Did you see if it is a boy or a girl?” Tracy asks, then corrects herself, “I mean, um, well. Innie or outie, I guess?”

“Tracy,” Jean winces.

“Well, it’s true, Mom!” Tracy protests. “All that the ultrasound will tell you is that the kid has one kind of genitals or another.” She gives her mom an illustrative gesture. “Innie or outie. That doesn’t mean they’re a boy or a girl.”

“I didn’t want to know,” Helena says, trying to cut the impending argument short. “Still don’t, as a matter of fact.”

“So you’re going full Schrödinger?” Pete asks, tilting his head at her. “Won’t know until your-” his hands mimic a big pregnant belly in front of him and his eyebrows wiggle furiously, “wave function collapses?”

Helena stares at him – but his metaphor isn’t all that far off, considering. She shrugs and nods.

“Really? Why?” Tracy asks. “I can’t imagine not wanting to know.”

It’s one of the harder questions to answer, but Helena knows her reply will satisfy more than just this one, so she steels herself. “I… I, ah, hinted, yesterday, that the relationship between my parents and me isn’t… isn’t great. In short, they…” She takes a big breath and plunges into the deep end. “For them, children are a checkbox to tick, a must-have to make your life just so. Up to and including the children’s gender – one boy, one girl; one heir, one princess, preferably in that order.” Jean gives a soft gasp; her hand is at her mouth again and her eyes are brimming. Helena quickly looks away from her, fighting for the next words. “I never knew any of that, of course, until my… mother and I had a fight, shortly after Charlie… left.” She doesn’t say anything more about her sibling; only Myka knows more of what’s behind that last word, and the others don’t need to. “And she told me that-” she grits her teeth; the memory still makes her sick. She focuses on the carpet in front of her, on the way it’s been ruffled by people walking to and fro to find an empty seat for dinner. “-that she terminated three pregnancies before the one that resulted in me. Because she didn’t want another boy.”

“But,” Shaw splutters, “but isn’t that illegal?”

Helena scoffs at the carpet. “If you’ve got enough money, you’ll always find ways around that.” She inhales sharply and goes on, “I think she meant to tell me that I was a wished-for baby, but I heard quite the opposite – she didn’t want a baby for his or her own sake; she wanted to mark off another must-have.” She bites her lips sharply to pull herself into the present again, “Anyway, that is why I don’t want to know the sex, and why abortion is not an option for me.”

“And why you don’t want to tell your parents,” Jean says, voice heavy and eyes wide with compassion. 

Helena scoffs again. “Oh, no, _that_ goes a step further,” she says, “just to be clear. As long as I am underage, I swear they’ll find a way to make me return home and force me to- to terminate the pregnancy.” She takes another deep breath. “I’ll turn eighteen on January fourth. Until that day, my parents _cannot_ know.” And that’s why she’s telling these people: they _must_ understand how important secrecy is in this. This simply _cannot_ get out or it will somehow get back to Helena’s parents. Weirder things have happened. “That means especially in school,” she adds, “because if Mrs. Frederic finds out, she is bound to tell my parents; she’ll have to, as my host and as the principal of my school. And that mustn’t happen.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Jean can no longer hold back; she’s in front of Helena in three quick steps, holding out her arms. Helena lets herself be pulled into standing, into an embrace, but she doesn’t let herself relax into it – she can’t; not yet. Jean realizes after a moment, and withdraws. “Listen,” Myka’s mother says, holding Helena by her arms, “if you need to give them a reason for not coming home over Christmas, just tell them I’ve invited you to stay with us and won’t take no for an answer. It won’t be a lie either.”

“I hadn’t even thought that far,” Helena admits. It’s… improbable that her parents would ask her to return for the holidays; it’s so easy to explain away a child’s absence by ‘oh, she’s abroad for an exchange year’, the way they did with Charles – Charlie, Helena corrects herself – in the beginning. “Thank you, though, for the offer.”

“And if necessary, give me their phone number and I’ll give them a piece of my mind,” Jean adds darkly – which is saying something, for someone as sweet as Jean Bering. She cups Helena’s cheek for a moment and smiles at her before returning to her seat.

Helena sinks down into her spot, stunned by Jean’s actions and words alike. Doctor Calder, it seems, was right. Myka scoots close to her and takes her hand once again while Helena tries to shake her thoughts back into order. 

“We won’t tell anyone,” Tracy promises. “I’ll flat-out deny it even when you’re, you know.” It’s her now who holds out her hands about two feet in front of her stomach. Shaw, at her side, nods intently. 

Pete points at Tracy and nods, too – his mouth is full again. He swallows about half of its contents and says, “Yeah, that.”

“Doctor Calder said I probably won’t be showing until well after Christmas break,” Helena says, “depending on the clothes I wear and how, uh…”

“How you carry,” Jean completes the sentence with a knowing nod. She looks around at the questioning faces and explains, “Some women carry their child very narrow, very forward; you wouldn’t even know if you saw them from behind. Some women grow big really fast. Some women retain a lot of water, so their facial features or arms or legs show swelling – although I wouldn’t think the other students would recognize what that means. Teachers might, though.” She tilts her head as she eyes Helena. “I don’t think you fall into that last category, dear.”

“Doctor Calder didn’t think so either,” Helena says with a little grimace. She does know what Jean is talking about; her mother commented on precisely that whenever she saw paparazzi shots of a celebrity going through it. ‘Look at her, even her _face_ is pregnant.’ And while Helena doesn’t like to admit it, she is aware that she’s just a little bit vain of her appearance. It is one of her assets, after all; something she can make use of to protect herself. The thought of stretch marks in particular is… difficult. Let’s leave it at that, she tells herself, unless and until it becomes an issue. Also something Doctor Calder said: not all women get them. She clings to that, shallow as it makes her feel. 

“Have you had any difficulties so far, sweetheart?” Jean asks, and, when Helena shakes her head – well, the nausea wasn’t a walk in the park, but it could have been worse, right? – she smiles in relief. “Oh good,” she sighs. “I had an awful first trimester with both of the girls. You’re how far along now?”

“Twelve weeks.”

Jean nods knowingly. “On the cusp of the second trimester, then,” she says. “Here’s to hoping it’ll be as nice for you as it was for me.” She seems to think of something, then, and glances at Myka very briefly, but pinches her mouth shut before she can say it. It looks like she’s blushing.

“So, when will you pop?” Pete asks, rooting around in his cardboard box and coming up empty.

“Jaysus, Pete, could you be more gross,” Tracy drawls. She’s not the only one disapproving; even Warren Bering looks more put out by Pete’s question than he does by his youngest daughter swearing.

Helena’s grimace is bigger this time, but not because of Pete’s choice of words. “End of May,” she says. Which is smack in the middle of the A-levels exam weeks, and _that_ is what’s annoying her.

“So not at prom then; that’s good. Could you imagine?” He holds out his hands squarely in front of him, shaping a monitor. “Surprise guest at local prom; more on the news at six. Ooh, maybe at graduation, though!” 

“Seriously, Pete, what is _with_ you?” Myka snaps at him. 

“I’m trying to lighten the mood, Mykes,” he shoots back. “I figure everyone’s all doom and gloom here, so, you know, the Petester is bringing the laughs, or trying to.” He turns to Helena, serious now. “H.G., you _got_ this. I _know_ you do. You’re smart as heck, and you’ve got us, right? Sure, yeah, teenage pregnancy, yada yada yada, but you know what, I did the math ages ago and my mom was _barely_ eighteen when she had Jeannie. Like, ‘almost shared a birthday’ barely. So you got _her_ beat,” he adds with a thumbs-up, to which Helena gives him an ironic eyebrow in return. “Come to think of it,” he goes on, “maybe talk to her? My mom, I mean? Like, okay, times are different now, but still, maybe she can, I don’t know, talk you through stuff or something?”

“If Helena does, it’s gonna be her decision,” Myka says sharply. _“You_ won’t tell Jane. Or I _will_ kill you.”

“Christ, dude,” he replies, hands raised in surrender. “Of course I won’t; cool your jets, alright?”

“As long as we’re clear on that,” Myka says, sounding slightly mollified.

Her protectiveness is sweet. 

“I have a question,” Warren Bering says, and the room falls quiet.

“Sir,” Helena acknowledges that she’s heard him.

“Who’s gonna pay?”

“Pardon me?”

“If you and your folks fall out over this, which sounds likely: what are you going to do for money?” he elaborates. “I’m assuming you’re getting some form of allowance from them right now, right? And frankly, they don’t sound like the kind of folk who would keep you in money if they found out about… you know.”

“You’re right,” Helena says, “they’re not. Fortunately, I stand to come into money on my eighteenth birthday; I had a-” she stops for a moment, thinking of Aunt Tee, but goes on before the thought of what Aunt Tee would think of her now can derail her, “-a great aunt who left me a substantial sum when she passed. It is currently being held in trust; my parents cannot access it nor prevent me from getting access to it upon my birthday.”

“You’re a _trust fund baby?”_ Tracy exclaims.

Helena glares at her. “Do I look like one?”

“Well…” Tracy gives back, undeterred, with her head tilted just like Jean had done moments ago. She waves her hand over Helena. “I’d expect a bit more… y’know, oxford shoes, popped collar, Burberry shirts, that kind of thing, but… I can kinda see it, yeah?”

“Shut up, Trace,” Myka sighs.

“What, like-”

“Tracy.” Warren Bering says only the one word, but Tracy falls silent. “How much?” he asks Helena. 

“Sir?”

“How much money is in that fund?”

“I… don’t know precisely,” Helena says, haltingly; she’s never wanted to know. Then again, maybe now she needs to. “I’ll find out, though,” she adds. 

“You do that,” he nods. “You do that.”

“Are you gonna stay here?” Tracy asks. “After graduation? I mean if your parents are assholes like that-” 

“Tracy Louise Bering!”

“Oh, _come_ on, Mom, like _you_ haven’t thought it.”

“Thinking and saying out loud are two different things, and that’s a lesson you have yet to learn,” Jean says stiffly.

Tracy stares at her for a moment, open-mouthed in surprise, then blinks and turns to Helena again. “Anyway, are you?”

Next to Helena, Myka fidgets, and Helena wonders if Myka wanted to know this too but didn’t dare to ask. The breath Helena takes is so deep that her shoulders touch Myka’s, and that’s on purpose. “I assume so,” she says quietly. “I’ve had a kinder reaction by the people in this room, to this kind of announcement, than I’ve ever gotten from my parents.”

“Hey, I’m in this room too!” Pete beams and leans over precariously to offer Helena a fist bump.

And the thing is: he’s not wrong. So Helena accepts. Gingerly. He’s been eating chicken wings, and the grease absolutely will go up to and beyond his knuckles. 

Then her phone starts buzzing again. 

“Use my room,” Myka says, immediately picking up on who this is, and Helena gives her a grateful smile. 

She’s barely closed the door behind her when she picks up. “Charlie!”

“Hellbuuuuuug!” Charlie sounds exuberant. “Hellbug, my rotten little demon spawn, how the fuck are you?”

Helena chuckles as she sinks onto the bed. “Don’t get soft on me when you hear this, but all the better for hearing your voice, expletives and all.”

“Awww,” Charlie coos. 

It makes sense that Charlie has come out as non-binary. It makes so much sense, in hindsight. Helena doesn’t know if it played into their suicide attempt, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it did. And they do sound so much happier now. 

“Did your sound check go well?”

“Ugh,” they groan, “ca-ta-strophic. But it’s all good now, and I’ve told them I need to talk with my baby sister for at least the next hour. So. Shoot. Tell your Cha-Cha.”

“Charlie, I’m pregnant.”

They burst into a coughing fit, and between that and Helena apologizing, a minute or two pass. Then, “You are _what?!”_

“Pregnant.”

“How?!” And before Helena can draw breath, Charlie adds, “And you better not give me some bollocks like ‘when a girl loves a boy very, very much’, or I swear I’ll teleport through the phone to send back you to the hell-hole you belong to.”

It’s like they never stopped talking. Helena swallows that thought, though, in favor of not tearing up yet again. “I, uh… well, in a way it’s Mum and Dad’s fault.”

“Isn’t it always,” Charlie sighs. “What’d they do this time?” They make it sound like they’re talking about puppies with a naughty habit of peeing on the floor, and Helena giggles.

“I don’t even remember,” she says then, growing serious again and cupping her forehead with her hand. She truly doesn’t recall what the fight was about. “I just remember how utterly furious it made me. And my genius self apparently thought that picking up a bloke at the local record store while they were hosting a party was the way to pay them back.” She runs her hand through her hair, tugging at the tips. It never fails to calm her down.

 _“Holy_ hook-up, Hellbug,” Charlie breathes. 

“I didn’t think about contraception at all, Cha-Cha; I’ve been on the pill since I was fourteen, for god’s sake. And don’t you start about not taking it correctly; the OB I saw earlier tried that too and I _swear,_ Charlie-”

“Alright, alright,” they laugh. “Don’t jump down _my_ throat, Hellkin, _I_ didn’t say anything.”

“Good,” Helena says pointedly. Their use of ‘Hellkin’ is gratifying; it says ‘you might be demon spawn, but we’re family.’ “Like I said,” she goes on, “I didn’t even think that I could possibly be pregnant, and that’s why, until yesterday, I missed all of the signs. And now here I am, twelve weeks along and in a foreign country. Potentially without valid health insurance,” she adds, and makes a mental note not just to research the fund conditions but this, too.

“Bloody damnation, Hellbug,” Charlie says softly. “Do you have someone over there at least? Made some friends in that school you’re in now?”

“Yes,” she breathes, and can’t help breaking into a smile. 

They hear it, blast them. “Oh-ho! Tell me more! Wait – hang on. The person, as chance would have it, who told you the time zone?!”

“Yes,” she breathes again.

 _“Helenaaaa!”_ Charlie crows. “I need to know _everything.”_

And so she grabs Wilbur and hugs him, and tells Charlie, with Myka’s scent in her nose, here in Myka’s room, which breathes Myka from every square inch of it, about Myka her girlfriend. The doorbell rings halfway through, but Helena hears several sets of footsteps acknowledging it, so she ignores it.

“The Hellbug’s in love,” Charlie sings when she’s done. “Oh my claws and pincers, that is just a-doh-rah-bellllll! I want to meet your Myka, give her the shovel talk, be a good big sibling _finally_ – oh! Do you have a picture? What does she look like? Come on, Hellkin, throw a kid a bone?”

“You will _not_ give her the shovel talk or I will bury you myself, so help me,” Helena snaps, and then smoothens down the fur between Wilbur’s ears in apology. “Cha-Cha, right at the beginning she said she’s in my corner, at my side come what may, and when I found out – when she learned that I’m pregnant, she explicitly reaffirmed it. Her father got his knackers in a twist about it and she _faced him down.”_

“Yeah, you’re right, she doesn’t deserve the speech,” Charlie says quietly. “She deserves a fucking medal – or a ring, depending.”

Helena’s heart stutters for a terrifying moment, then she catches herself. “Charlie, I’m not even eighteen yet, and she’s two months younger; I am _not_ proposing to her.”

“Why not? Stranger things have happened.”

Helena swears under her breath. “I refuse to entertain the thought of marriage, alright? I have a hard enough time getting used to the thought of bloody well being pregnant.”

“Granted. Still, do you have a picture?” 

She sighs. “I’ll send you one when we’re done talking. But please don’t share it, okay? In case you’re on social media? We’ve only officially told a small number of people. I’m not keen on sharing it more widely.”

“Oh, no worries. I won’t even show it to my band mates.”

“Right – you’re in a band?” Helena perks up. 

“Oh! Yeah.” Now _she_ can hear _Charlie_ grinning over the phone. “Yeah, we’re currently touring New Hampshire, of all places. Nothing planned for your time zone. Seriously, Hellbug, Colorado?”

“Colorado Springs,” she specifies.

“Oh ugh,” they say. “Why not Aspen or Boulder or someplace cool like that?”

“It’s not like I had much choice, you know,” she says acerbically.

They sigh. “Yeah, I know. Just taking the mick out of my Hellkin.”

“Where do _you_ live, then?”

“New York, baby!” Charlie crows. “And malevolent lord of hell, I wish we were there right now. Don’t get me wrong, touring is fun, but I am already looking forward for winter break. We’re up in the north-east right now, New Hampshire, Vermont, those places; the Southwest after that, and I have no idea how my voice will handle going from freezing to balmy. And then the West Coast in the new year – say, I could come visit for Christmas?”

She dips her head and leans into the stuffed grizzly bear. “I just got invited to spend the holidays with Myka’s family,” she admits, “I couldn’t simply add another guest.”

“Oh, I’ll book myself into a hotel,” Charlie says immediately. “Wouldn’t want to be a bother. Just want to see what my Hellbug has grown into! And my little nibling! Oooh, are they already moving?”

“I saw them move on the ultrasound,” Helena says. Calling the baby ‘them’ makes a lot of sense, and it is easier to focus on that than on the memory of how _strange_ it felt to see the baby on the monitor and imagine that that was going on _inside of her._ “But I haven’t felt them yet. The doctor said that’s normal, though,” she adds. It’s one of the things she keeps reminding herself of – all of the ways in which Doctor Calder reaffirmed that this is normal, that that is healthy, that she’s doing well and so is the baby. In the carousel that her life has become since Friday night, this and Myka’s promise are the fixed points that she clings to. And, it seems, this bear that smells of Myka. “Apparently,” she goes on, “most first mothers don’t feel their child move until week twenty, and that’s mid-January. Earliest is week sixteen, and that is Christmas week – but it’d be only me feeling it, from the inside. She said people can feel it from the outside a few weeks later.” Is she overloading Charlie with information? But she wanted to know, so presumably they do, too?

“Well, maybe your spawn is precocious,” Charlie says. “You never know with Hellbugs. I’ve learned that only very recently.”

“Ha-ha, Cha-Cha,” she snarks at him. “So, touring with a band, then.”

“Yes! Oh, my demon-kin, it’s _marvelous,”_ they say expansively. “Exhausting as the pit, but bloody marvelous all the same. I think we’re really taking off with this album. But then I thought that last time too and it didn’t happen, so perhaps I should stop blabbing; not that I’ll jinx it, you know.”

“Send me a picture of you lot?”

“Oh you show me yours, I show you mine, baby,” they laugh. 

She snorts too. In one way, it doesn’t seem like any time has passed since they talked last; in another, it’s like it’s been a million years – she’s no longer the fourteen-year-old girl, heartbroken and horrified to lose her only ally, and they’re no longer the genius strangled by unloving and unsupportive parents. “I’ve missed you, Cha-Cha,” she tells them softly.

“Hellbug, I’m so, so sorry,” they reply immediately, voice thick with sadness. “You know I-”

“I know. Charlie, I know. Bloody hell, you tried to kill yourself. I _know_ you couldn’t stay.” And still it broke her heart. And still she understood. And still.

“I hope you also know that I’ve had a bad conscience from the fucking _moment_ I stepped out that door.”

She didn’t, doesn’t, and it’s good to hear. “Thank you, Charlie.”

“At least you’re out of their clutches now, Hellbug,” they say tersely. “Oh, that reminds me – has Caturanga called you yet?”

“Who?”

“He’s the bloke who runs the trust fund,” Charlie says. “I told him to get in touch with you as soon as possible, after your email – darling, I was _frantic,_ imagining what you might be going through to send me a message like that.”

“Oh bollocks, Cha-Cha, I’m sorry.” Helena vaguely recalls typing one brief sentence, not even the exact words she wrote. 

“Maybe communicate a _tad_ more next time,” Charlie laughs. “You got me going, Hellbug. Anyway, yeah, I sent him your number. I hope that was alright.”

“Perfectly,” Helena says, “I was planning to try to get in touch with him on Monday. Myka’s father asked if I knew what the fund was worth and I couldn’t answer him, and I myself find I would quite like to know, you know. What with everything and all.”

“Oh he’ll be able to tell you. I take it you’re not taking any chances of our beloved begetters finding out about your situation?”

“Bloody hell no, I’m not,” Helena says. 

“Righty-ho, darling. Up fucking theirs.”

“Precisely.”

“So what else is- oh, sorry, hang on, what?” The last word is off-speaker, to someone who just spoke in the background. That person repeats themselves, and Charlie gives a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose,” they drawl at the background person, then their voice is in the speaker again. “My lovely ichor-crusted demon kin, I have to go. You have my number now; text me anything that happens, call me day or night. I mean it. Alright?”

“You’ll be sick of me in no time,” she promises them. “Up theirs, Cha-Cha.”

“Up fucking theirs, Hellbug,” they repeat, and end the call.


	30. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fourth of four chapters for today! Just a quick reminder: the next one isn't out till December 13, in case you want to pace your reading to tide you over until then.

“So,” Myka’s dad says when Helena has left the room, “she’s serious about this, then.” He looks at Myka expectantly. 

“As much as anyone can be in her situation, I’m sure,” Jean answers him instead, and Myka is glad _she_ doesn’t have to say anything – she doesn’t want to say ‘yes’ and box Helena into something she can’t change her mind about later, and she doesn’t want to say ‘no’ and have her dad think that Helena is indecisive. 

He grumbles a bit. “Seems she has a source of income, though,” he says in the end. “That’ll help matters.”

“And if she didn’t, dear, I’m sure she would make it work somehow regardless.” Myka has never realized how optimistic her mother is, and how reassuring that can be. 

“Hey, Mykes, you okay?” Pete is sitting down next to her, asking under his breath while her parents are talking with each other. 

She pulls her mouth into a small grimace. “Mostly, I think,” she says. She’d love to tell him the same thing she told Helena: that she doesn’t have all the answers, and that that’s okay. But she doesn’t want to even _think_ these words this close to her parents. This way of thinking is new-ish to her and she can handle it, but she doesn’t want to explain it to her parents, doesn’t feel up to the reaction she’s sure it would get.

“This is big, huh.” He nudges her shoulder with his own. “Listen, I’m here for you, okay? Like, I get that you wanna be there for her, but someone’s gotta be there for you too, and that’ll be me, alright? Keep that in mind.”

She nudges him back. Suddenly, as they sit there, listening to her parents’ low voices, she feels sleepiness come crashing down on her like the biggest wave breaking. She stifles a yawn. 

“Hey, how much sleep did you get?” he asks with a commiserating tone to his voice.

“Between the midnight opening and Helena freaking out? About five hours, I think.”

“You mean that was yesterday?!”

“Technically, today,” she corrects him. “Like, three in the morning.”

He gives a low whistle. “Wow. And she freaked out, huh.”

Myka scoffs. “Wouldn’t you?” She grabs a throw pillow and hugs it too her.

“I’m amazed _you’re_ not freaking out, to be honest.”

“I think I haven’t had time for it yet,” Myka admits, low as she can – this is also not really something she wants her parents to overhear.

“Ah.” He nods sagely. “Yeah, that’d explain it.” 

They sit in silence for a moment, and Myka is definitely listing now, tired beyond words. She’s nodding off, almost – and then the doorbell rings and she startles upright again.

“Ah,” her father says, “that’ll be the re-stock.”

“Tracy, Shaw, would you be so kind?” Jean asks as Warren rises to answer the door.

Tracy already has her mouth open, no doubt to protest, but Shaw just pulls her out of her seat – she might be smaller by almost a head, but she’s at least as strong, if not stronger – and out of the room.

Jean waits until the door closes behind them, then walks over and sits down on Myka’s other side. Myka is framed by her and Pete now, and feels incredibly small and defenseless between them. She holds on just that little bit more tightly to the pillow in her arms. And then her mom reaches out to cup her cheek and says, “Oh, Myka, I’m so proud of you,” and it is _over._ Myka starts crying, unstoppably, uncontrollably crying, shaking with her need to get air into her lungs between silent sobs, and she’s cradled by her mother and the closest thing to a big brother she’s ever had, and yeah. Small and defenseless describes it pretty well, but the thing is, here? Here, she doesn’t have to be big and strong. She doesn’t have to have it together. This isn’t Helena on the verge of falling apart leaning into her seeking support, this isn’t Myka’s dad judging her ability to cope; this is her Mom and Pete, the two people who’ve known her forever.

And yet Helena is only a few feet away, and who knows when she’ll be back. Myka can’t be dissolving into snot when Helena comes back through that door, so she pulls herself together when she can, sitting up straighter in the space Pete makes for her. She takes a deep, only slightly tremulous breath, dashes her hands across her cheeks, blows her nose. Puts the pillow back in its spot. Says, “Thank you, Mom,” and hopes that her mother knows it’s not just gratitude for saying she’s proud of Myka, but for the solace of her hug, too.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jean replies, squeezing Myka’s arm. “I look at you and see your father’s best qualities, you know. How you don’t compromise when you’ve got your mind set on something, and don’t stop until you’ve reached it. How you hold yourself to the highest standards. How you fight so unwaveringly for the ones you love, how you care- no, don’t dismiss that, sweetie, he does. And he is trying to tell you, to show you. I _know_ he didn’t use to; god help me, I know. But he’s trying now, and that’s worth something, isn’t it?”

Pete shifts, next to her, and Myka doesn’t look at him. She knows he’d do anything to have a father in his life, even one as objectively shitty as Warren Bering, if said father was trying to change his ways. Or even if he wasn’t.

But Pete hasn’t lived his life in Warren Bering’s shadow. 

If there is one thing, _one thing_ Myka has come close to fighting over with Pete, it’s this – no father being better or worse than a shitty father – and so she’s not looking at him, and trying not to acknowledge his fidgeting. “I guess,” she says, and sincerely hopes her mother will drop the matter. Frankly, she’s too tired for this discussion.

As if Jean can see it – and she probably can – all she does is give Myka’s arm another wordless squeeze. Then she turns to Pete. “Seems I need to bury my hopes for you as a son-in-law for good, then, eh?” she says lightly. 

He grins at her while Myka rolls her eyes. “Aw, Mrs. B, don’t tell me you hadn’t yet? We’re just best bros, Mykes and I, you know that.”

“But you do make such a good candidate,” Jean tells him. “Any girl would be lucky to catch you. Or boy, I suppose, these days.”

“Oh, I’m strictly Team Hetero,” Pete shrugs, “but good job on the inclusivity there. I hope you weren’t too sad when you found out that both your daughters are playing for different teams.”

I’m sitting right here, are the words at the tips of Myka’s tongue, but she doesn’t say them; she’s far too curious what her mom thinks about that than to stop this thread of conversation. 

Jean chuckles, and it’s a bit defensive. “Pete,” she chides gently. “I just want them to be happy. Yes, okay, I’ll admit it was a bit of a challenge at first, to wrap my mind around it, but look at them!” 

Myka meets first her mother’s, then Pete’s eyes with raised eyebrows. She’s just bawled her eyes out, and she is one hundred percent certain she looks the part. 

“Well,” Jean concedes, “alright, point taken.” She ruffles Myka’s hair ever so slightly, then, quick as lightning, strokes a caress down her cheek. “Still. This,” she points at Myka, “is love. It’s not always pretty, and sometimes it’s seriously hard, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happiness, overall, you know? And when I watch the two of you, and Tracy and Shaw? What I see is my daughters being happy. I don’t care how sappy that makes me sound,” she adds. “Even if it comes with a side-order of tears sometimes,” and at this, she wraps her arm around Myka’s shoulder and squeezes, “that’s all a mother wants, for her kids to be happy.”

“And here my mom made me think it was grandkids,” Pete jokes, with just the right amount of goofing to offset Jean’s embarrassing honesty. 

“Oh, well, you know,” Jean says lightly, “I sure could have stood to wait a _few_ more years, but it does look like I’m getting one anyhow.”

If Myka wasn’t sitting down, this would have floored her. She stares at Jean, slack-jawed with surprise. Is that- Does that mean- Is she- “W-what?” she splutters.

Jean’s eyes go wide. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I did jump the gun there a little, didn’t I?” Her arm around Myka’s shoulders tightens once more. “I mean I’ve offered to be a… mom-adjacent figure. To Helena. You know, since I thought she was so far away from her family here. And now that I’m learning more about her folks, well. You know me,” she adds with a self-deprecating little eye-roll. “And she is my daughter’s girlfriend, so, in an unofficial, not-government-sanctioned but still significant way, that makes me… well, mom-adjacent, doesn’t it?”

“I guess,” Myka says weakly. 

“Well, there you go,” Jean replies, sitting back in satisfaction as if she’s just proved a point beyond any shade of doubt.

“Uh-oh, Mykes,” Pete laughs, “I’m getting serious mom-in-law vibes here. Better get a move on with the ring buying and stuff.”

Both Bering women are quick to protest this, but he doesn’t stop grinning, even when Myka smacks him. He keeps throwing phrases like ‘make an honest woman of her’ and ‘put a ring on it’ and Myka keeps slapping him and she knows she’s bruising him and he has a meet three days from now but he _just won’t stop_ – until the door opens and Helena is back.

“Hi,” Myka says, breathless, still bracketed between her mother and her best friend. She quickly stands. “Um, you alright?”

“Yes,” Helena replies with a smile that’s almost back at before-this-weekend levels of ease. “Thanks for letting me use your room.”

“Sure.”

“Hey, H.G., who were you talking to? You were gone for ages!” 

“Just ignore him,” Myka says, rolling her eyes then turning to glare at Pete. “It’s none of his business.”

“My sibling. Charlie,” Helena says, though. “They left home four years ago, after a failed suicide attempt. Moved to the US, and asked me to stay out of contact until I wasn’t living with my parents anymore, for self-preservation. Today was the first time we’ve spoken since they left.” 

She delivers this so matter-of-factly, Myka can only see the conflict beneath it because she knows it’s there – but it seems to have changed. Because of this phone call, maybe? Some unresolved things that are resolved now?

Jean gasps once more. “Oh the poor dear,” she says in a choked voice. “Are… they… okay now?” She stumbles a bit over the singular they, but perseveres, and Myka is suddenly so proud of her mom she’s halfway to telling her. But Helena is already replying, and Myka doesn’t want to butt in.

“Yes,” Helena says with a smile full of relief, “yes, they are. Never better, they said. They’ve suggested they come visit for Christmas, and before you say anything,” she adds quickly, before Myka’s mom can open her mouth, “they’ll find a hotel. Neither of us would want to be a bother.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Jean says, “but I appreciate the thought. Please tell them that, will you? And I do want them – well, both of you, just in case that wasn’t clear – to join us for Christmas dinner at the very least.”

“Happy to,” Helena says, with a true, sincere, open smile. Then her phone buzzes with a message and she jumps slightly. “Oh! Would you mind awfully?” Her phone is already in her hand; her question barely bridling her obvious curiosity. “I think that’s a picture of them. They said they’d send one.”

She receives three go-aheads all over each other, and returns another one of those smiles. When she opens the message, she gasps, and her smile turns delighted. “Oh,” she breathes softly, her eyes aglow. Then she turns over her phone. “Will you _look_ at them!”

Myka does look; takes the phone, zooms in. Charlie is immediately recognizable by the same dark brown eyes and an even sharper jawline. Their make-up makes their features almost fay – but then Myka has no doubt Helena could pull that off too if she wanted. Charlie’s surrounded by three more people holding, respectively, a bass guitar, a pair of drumsticks, and a saxophone, all standing in front of a darkened stage in various poses of excitement. The energy of the picture speaks of the same kind of pumping yourself up that Myka knows from just before a tournament, and it’s infectious. No wonder Helena is smiling the way she is. 

“You’re Charlie Evan’s sister?!” 

Myka hasn’t noticed Pete standing up behind her until he releases four words in ever-ascending tones of incredulity. 

Helena blinks, then chuckles and rolls her eyes. “I would assume so,” she shrugs. “If by Charlie Evans you mean the person left of center. Why?”

“Why?” Pete asks in his most sincere ‘are-you-kidding-me’ voice. “They’re only the front fairy of CATTA, the hottest, newest shi- shindig of the decade, that’s why! I can’t believe I didn’t _see_ it!”

“Front fairy?” Jean asks.

“Catter?” Helena laughs, at the same time. 

“Yeah, because they’re neither a front _man_ nor a front _woman,”_ Pete explains to Jean, “and also not just a singer, so also not front _singer._ They’d rather be known as a fairy. And that’s C-A-T-T-A,” he spells out for Helena, “Charlie and the Terrific Allys. A pun, you see? Oh, this is so awesome.”

Myka is not sure if by that he means the fact that the band’s name is a pun or the fact that Helena is related to, apparently, a famous person. This is Pete; it could well be both. She meets Helena’s eyes and they both shrug at his enthusiasm. “I’ve never heard of CATTA,” Myka admits, and Helena nods. 

“That’s because, my Mykes, and don’t take this in a bad way,” he warns, pulling back from her ever so slightly, “you have _no_ clue when it comes to music.”

“Hey,” Myka protests. He might be technically mostly correct, but still. And she’s learned stuff from Helena. “A person can’t know everything, alright? Just because you know something I didn’t doesn’t mean you can lord it over me.”

“When it comes to you, Miss Eidetic Memory, that is _exactly_ what it means,” Pete replies, and Myka sees Jean bite back a laugh.

And then her father comes back with Tracy and Shaw in tow, and Tracy recognizes Charlie too, because of course she does, and Myka just huffs her annoyance as she drops back onto the sofa.

A moment later, Helena joins her in watching the hubbub on the other side of the room. “Are you alright, darling?” she asks, slipping her hand into Myka’s and squeezing. Her eyes linger on Myka’s face, and Myka suddenly remembers she bawled not twenty minutes ago. Her eyes are probably still red.

“Oh! Yeah. Yes.” She gives Helena a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Helena smiles back without another word, just presses Myka’s fingers again and then turns to watch the rest of the crowd discuss something or other. Helena’s phone is in Shaw’s hands, all but forgotten, and as if their two gazes remind Shaw of it, there’s a little double take, a turn, a grin, and then a tossed phone sailing towards them. 

Helena gasps slightly, and Myka snatches the phone out of the air with her left hand before it can hit her girlfriend. “Thanks,” Helena says dryly, reaching for it. “By the way, I hadn’t heard of CATTA either, if that helps.”

“It does,” Myka sighs. She has already determined to look them up – but then there are about a million things on that list from today alone, so it might take her a while to come around to a band, even if she’s curious to know what kind of music Charlie makes. Still, though, things like folic acid sources and how best to support your pregnant partner are on her mind a bit more urgently right now.

“They look so happy,” Helena says, almost to herself, as she looks at the picture again. But she smiles at Myka at the end of her words, so Myka feels free to nod her agreement.

“Yeah, they do.”

“And they were excited about the baby,” Helena adds. “Called them a nibling, and ‘them’.” 

“Oh that makes sense. And ‘nibling’ – that is so cute!”

“Isn’t it?” Helena agrees. “I’ll use ‘them’, too. Although I suppose it might make people wonder if I’m having twins.” She shudders with the idea. “Lord, could you imagine.”

Myka shakes her head wildly. “There’s a pair of twins in the kindergarten class that Tracy volunteers with, and their mother is pregnant with twins _again_ right now, and that is a hard no.”

Helena groans. “Agreed. I suppose I got off lightly, considering that, and considering that some people have to be hospitalized for barfing too much.”

“Lucky you,” Myka agrees and then freezes – that sounded a bit insensitive, didn’t it? Before she can apologize, though, Helena nods and snuggles more closely into her side. 

“Lucky me,” she sighs, soft enough to be almost inaudible. “Lucky me, with all of this.” When Myka looks at her questioningly, Helena nods her chin at the roomful of people; at Jean and Warren off to the side talking quietly about who-knows-what, at Tracy, Shaw and Pete arguing about the music choices at some party or other. Myka follows Helena’s gaze, and then Helena’s hand slips out of hers and curls around Myka’s cheek, bidding her to turn and look at Helena. “And you,” Helena adds. Her gaze is full of emotion, too much of it for Myka to parse. There is a small, almost imperceptible uptick at the end of it, as if Helena wants it to be true, wills it to be true, but doesn’t fully trust it to be true yet. 

Myka shifts, turning her body around where she sits so she can face Helena more fully. “Always me,” she confirms, and it’s easy. It’s as easy as breathing, when she looks at Helena like that. Even with the million things she still needs to google, even with all of the questions she doesn’t know the answers to, even with her eyes still itchy from the tears she just cried. “Always.” 

“Hey, lovebirds,” Pete interrupts them, “I’mma take Shaw home now.” He throws the short girl a quick thumbs-up, then turns back to Helena and Myka. “H.G., you want a ride too?”

Helena hesitates, and casts a fleeting look at Myka, then at Myka’s parents. 

The last part is what makes things click for Myka, and she asks quickly, “Or do you want to stay another night? Mom, would that be okay?”

“Of course, dear,” Jean says, and when Tracy, again, draws air to protest, Jean holds up her hand. “I know what you’re going to say, Tracy, but Helena’s situation is _quite_ a bit different than Shaw’s and yours, wouldn’t you agree?”

Tracy snaps her mouth shut and pouts, but Myka doesn’t care, because at the same moment, Helena says, “I would love to, yes.”

Myka beams at her. 

Tracy pouts through a round of after-dinner Trivial Pursuit and Myka still doesn’t care, because Helena’s hand is in hers under the table. It distracts Myka to the point where she loses to her little sister, but she doesn’t care about that either, and at least gloating makes Tracy stop pouting. 

They head to bed after that, and Helena’s mattress is still on the floor and Myka doesn’t care, because without prompt or asking, Helena climbs into bed with her, and they fall asleep spooning and stay that way all night.


	31. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have a snow day, everyone!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW mentions of cancer in a side character

It’s Sunday night and Myka is laying on her bed, staring up at Wonder Woman on the wall. She remembers reading that Gal Gadot was pregnant for some of the shoots for this movie and her next one. It had sounded both badass and upsetting at the same time back then – badass Gal Gadot for doing, while pregnant, a job that involved her whole body like that, with stunts and everything; upsetting that she’d had to hide the fact from some of her co-stars and crew for fear of being treated differently. 

You should be allowed some leeway when your body is making another human being. 

No wonder Helena had looked so pale and tense those first weeks. Myka winces as she thinks back on that time, as she thinks how, if only she had known, she could have supported Helena, helped her, made sure she was eating right, all of that. She just hopes it’s not too late to start now. Helena said this morning that she wanted to be by herself the rest of today, so Myka took her home after breakfast, sneaking Wilbur into Helena’s backpack as moral support, seeing as Helena had spent the last two nights hugging the bear to her. And over the day, Myka sent her a couple reminders (don’t spiral, don’t go down rabbit holes, I love you), and got replies – good replies, too, replies that didn’t sound as though Helena was obsessing or otherwise in a bad place. 

But Myka is sure there’s more to the whole thing than that, and she wishes she was with Helena right now, to be able to gauge her state of mind, see if she needs something. A checklist, Myka thinks. She should make a checklist. Surely there are checklist templates for partners of pregnant people, right? Or books. Those prenatal classes – when they show those in rom coms, there’s always someone at the woman’s side, and when there isn’t, it’s for dramatic effect. 

Would Helena want that?

How much is too much? How involved does she want Myka to be? What does she want Myka to do to help?

Does she want the father of her child involved at all? He probably doesn’t even know – _should_ he know? Does Helena have a way of contacting him, if it was just a hook-up?

They probably should talk about that, right?

Maybe not on the phone, though. In person is better for this kind of thing. Myka wants to be able to see Helena’s reaction, be able to hug her if necessary, things like that. 

If they lived together, she could just roll over in bed and do that, because Helena would be _right there_ – for a moment, Myka entertains the thought. She and Helena and a small person, living in a house somewhere, having breakfast together before the kid needs to go to school and they need to go to work.

The scenario is bright like summer, warm with love, filled with joy. 

But then Myka realizes: Helena probably has a student visa of some kind right now, and that will become invalid if and when Helena stops being a student. And while her child, if it’s born in the US, will gain citizenship, that doesn’t mean Helena and the kid will be allowed to stay. Helena has said she wants to stay, but she might not be able to – might be sent back to her home country, to a place with no friends and hostile parents. 

Myka has come across at least four cases like that at ACLU.

She puts it on her list of things to look up, or ask one of the other volunteers or employees; she still has their numbers, and she’s sure one of them will be able to tell her. She just needs to find a way to ask them that has no connection to Helena at all. She nods to herself. That’s something she can do, a way in which she can contribute. 

Also: to live in a house, one has to buy a house or rent a house, and that costs money. They need to know- well, _Helena_ needs to find out, at least, Myka corrects herself, how much money Aunt Tee left her, needs to budget how long that will last and what Helena can or can’t do with it. Not every rich person (or kid of rich people) is good at that, and Helena has the added drawback of being from a different country that does things differently – like, oh, health insurance too, right? 

More things to go on Myka’s to-do list. 

Her eyes fall on the poster of Wonder Woman again, and she wonders (hah – Pete would high five her for that one) how Helena will look at five months pregnant, seven months, full term. Doctor Calder said that Helena might start showing sometime in January; that Myka might be able to feel the baby from the outside at around the end of January or the beginning of February. Is that going to be weird? How is it going to feel like? How might it feel like from the inside, for Helena? 

Myka runs a hand across her own stomach, trying to imagine the sensation. Not that she wants to be pregnant, but… well, who’s to say that her and Helena and the little one need to remain the only three people in that sunny house? Maybe one day, some way.

Doctor Calder also spoke about having sex during pregnancy, and those had been the five most _intensely_ uncomfortable minutes of Myka’s life. Yeah, okay, fine, good to know that it wasn’t a problem, that only some positions (oh god…) should be avoided and that it could do wonders for the expecting person’s mood and health (alright already). Anyway, it’s not like Myka or Helena couldn’t have looked that up for themselves, yes? 

Myka wonders how much of the sex-crazed hormonal maniac thing you see in movies or TV shows is real. Like, is that actually a thing? 

She wouldn’t… _mind,_ on the one hand. Not as such. Last Tuesday was _amazing._

That has really only been five days, huh. 

Myka exhales slowly, shaking her head. It feels as though that afternoon in the attic was ages ago, as though it happened to another Myka, one years younger. 

Seeing Helena wearing only her bra, seeing Helena _naked,_ _feeling_ Helena naked against her, being _inside_ Helena – Myka can call up all these memories readily, vividly, and yet… And yet she feels detached from them, in a way. It was only that one time, and so much has happened since. 

Would Helena even want to do that again? It’s not like she doesn’t have a shit ton of stuff on her mind right now, right? It might take so much more than Myka could ever provide to get Helena into the right headspace, considering… considering she’s just learned she’s _pregnant._

Like, even knowing which positions are okay (god…) and that the baby will feel none of it and that the hormones released by orgasm will make Helena feel good and that’s always something to seek out – could Helena let go of all of her concerns, enough to allow herself to feel at ease?

Could Myka?

And that’s the other hand, right there. Would it bother _her_ to make love to Helena, knowing that Helena is pregnant? Could _she_ let go of that thought?

Even if, they need to be even more conscientious about cleanliness, surely, right? There are bathrooms on the floor beneath the attic; they should make use of them. Or have something like a wash basin- 

No. Carrying water for ramen up the ladder is already annoying enough. Carrying a full, soapy water bowl _down_ the ladder is not something Myka wants to attempt, especially if her legs are going to be as shaky afterwards as they were on Tuesday. Maybe they _should_ look into plumbing? 

No. Myka shakes her head at herself; she knows her limits. Helena, maybe, good as she is with setting up physics experiments, but Myka? No.

Maybe some protective equipment, then? Gloves, things like that? Also something to look up. On a private browser tab, preferably. Myka does _not_ make a note of that; her memory will have to suffice. The idea of someone finding a note like that, even only by accident, is… _unthinkable._

If Helena is even interested. 

* * *

Two days later, up in their attic and alone which each other for the first time, Myka learns that Helena is.

And how.

And yes, Myka’s legs are just as shaky again, and yes okay, there were a few awkward moments, but holy-

The thing is, Helena’s tummy really shows no signs at all, and somehow that… helps? Like, for a moment when Myka is… um, down there- oh, alright: when she’s _going down_ on Helena, she has this mental vision or overlay or whatever, of Helena with a big pregnant belly, and somehow that totally throws Myka off balance until she actually _looks_ and there’s no sign of that, none whatsoever.

Yeah, awkward. 

They snuggle afterwards, the way they’ve become accustomed to, with Myka on her back and Helena rolled into her side, and somehow it doesn’t seem the right moment to talk about stuff like money or insurance or visas or what kind of involvement Helena might or might not want from Myka. Instead they talk about how Wilbur the bear smells like Myka and how Helena likes that, and then Helena opens her backpack and hands Callisto to Myka so that she’s not lonely without a bear, and it’s silly and it’s perfect, and Callisto smells like Helena and that is perfect too.

And somehow it isn’t the right moment on Thursday, either. 

Later that night, back at home, Mom asks Myka if Helena maybe wants to come over for the weekend, to help out again – the store really is that busy now, and that at least is something unequivocally good. Jean adds that Helena can stay the night – both nights, Friday and Saturday, so that Myka doesn’t have to drive her to and fro all the time, and Myka almost chokes on her dinner but manages to catch herself and say she’ll ask her. 

Helena says yes, and Myka’s heart flutters. She _resolves_ to talk to Helena Friday night, when they’re in her room and not in the attic – they can’t really… do… stuff, right? Not in Myka’s twin bed, not when her family-

Turns out they can.

Turns out they both can be really, really quiet. _Really_ quiet. 

Yeah, so that hormone thing really _is_ a thing. Helena says it’s a double honeymoon – apparently the second trimester is sometimes called the honeymoon phase of pregnancy, and of course, well, _this_ phase of a _relationship_ is _also_ called-

Yeah, okay, so double honeymoon and they can’t leave their fingers off each other; it’s almost embarrassing, or would be if it didn’t make Myka feel so _goddamn_ good. 

Helena, too; she says so, in breathless whispers and gasps that drive Myka _wild._ They have to be quiet, but it’s not like they need to not say anything. The walls aren’t _that_ thin.

For the first time in her life Myka is glad that her bedroom is the street-side one, next to the bathroom instead of another bedroom – that’s Tracy’s fate; she and Myka’s parents share a wall across the hallway. If that weren’t the case, if Tracy’s bedroom was Myka’s – Myka doesn’t think she could. She barely can as it is, and then Helena slides under her sheets and into her pants and-

At least they manage to not give each other hickeys where it shows. 

The next week passes and they _still_ haven’t talked, and Myka is beginning to wonder if they’re evading things. Like, okay, Helena has begun driver’s ed, and there are books on pregnancy on Myka’s desk at home and on both their phones, but-

It’s hard. How do you broach a subject like, ‘Hey, um, what kind of role would you like me to play in this whole thing?’ when every time they see each other in private, they- well, they _fall_ into each other, as if it’s inevitable, as if they’re magnetically attracted or something. 

The first snow falls on the second weekend of December, and since this is Colorado Springs and not Aspen, it stays on the ground for maybe half a minute. Helena, though, is excited as a little kid, and Myka – and her family, because it’s Saturday and Helena is helping in the store _again_ like apparently that is a thing now – learn that Helena has never, _ever,_ seen snow in real life, except for that one time Myka took her up to Pikes Peak. 

Like, never. 

Myka can’t wrap her mind around that. Helena’s folks are rich, shouldn’t they have taken her to, oh, Switzerland or something? 

“They both disliked the cold,” Helena tells Jean the next day in the car, when Jean asks the same thing.

They’re all bundled up and on their way to Breckenridge, because Jean – Minnesotan that she is – has not let the matter rest; has conscripted Tracy and Shaw to help in the bookstore, has sized Helena up for Tracy’s snow clothes and boots (and woolen hat, despite Helena’s protests), has filled up the car and set out to show Helena Wells Winter Wonderland as only the Colorado Rockies have to offer. 

It’s enchanting how Helena goes from mortified stewing (over Jean paying for yet another outing) to wide-eyed marvel, the higher the snow rises on the side of the road. It’s not all that deep yet to Myka’s eyes, maybe fifteen inches, maybe twenty in some places, but Helena stares at it as if she’s on Hoth or Andor or one of those planets, and when Jean parks the car, Helena is out in seconds and heading towards the pushed-together snow hills at the edge of the parking lot.

“Wait!” Myka calls out, laughing, and jogs after her. The snow is too powdery to be properly packed, and Myka knows what that means but Helena doesn’t. “Helena, wait. You’ll get snow in the tops of your boots and it’ll melt and you’ll have cold wet feet.” 

Helena makes a face, then glowers at the snow hill. 

“Come on, we can make snow angels instead.” There’s a little flat expanse on the other side of the parking lot, and though they’re obviously not the first people to get the idea, there are still a few empty spots. “Come on,” Myka repeats and tugs Helena’s arm.

Helena’s mittened hand stays in hers as they make their way over, and Myka hears the tell-tale click of her mom’s camera shutter, but she doesn’t mind. Truth to tell it’ll be nice to have another picture or two of her girlfriend, of the two of them together.

Jean takes photos of them making snow angels, too, and then Myka, still lying down next to Helena, gestures for the camera. Because the sky is so deeply, deeply blue overhead, and the snow so white and Helena’s hair so black and her cheeks so pink and the hat so red – all the lines crisped by sun and cold, it makes the perfect picture. 

And then Helena holds her hand out for the camera and Myka can’t say no, not when Helena looks at her with stars in her eyes over her cherry blossom cheeks. Between the sun overhead and the snow underneath them, Myka has never ever seen Helena’s eyes lit up so brightly; they’re usually so dark but here? There are details in them, ridges and valleys like a cocoa colored space nebula, and Myka wants to map them but the camera is in the way.

Myka holds still for the camera and then reminds Helena to put sunscreen on and wear sunglasses and hydrate until Helena calls her ‘Mom’ and Jean butts in and argues that yes, Myka, that’s _her_ job.

They go for a little walk – enough people have been here to make the snow packed and dense, even a little iced over. And that means that Myka takes Helena’s left elbow and Jean takes Helena’s right elbow as they walk, just to make sure that Helena, who doesn’t have the first idea how to walk on packed snow, doesn’t slip and fall. 

And Helena beams. She smiles and shines and radiates, she points out icicles as if they’re special (and Myka supposes they are, if you’ve never seen one before), she claps her hands in excitement when Jean talks about maple syrup poured onto snow to make taffy, she is so beautiful and carefree and _happy_ that it takes Myka’s breath away. Jean is enamored too, fussing over Helena like she used to over her own kids when Myka and Tracy were small, and Helena allows it, leans into it, soaks it up like she does the sunshine. 

They find a small local café for lunch and then head to a mall nearby, because why pass on the opportunity to do some Christmas shopping, as Jean says. The mall’s interior is made up to look like a old-world Christmas market, with stall facades in front of the storefronts and evergreen garlands with fairy lights adorning every place that evergreen garlands can possibly adorn. 

The stores are all local, a collective of artists and craftspeople offering their goods, from paper crafts to handmade soaps. Jean pulls Helena into a yarn store to pick out yarn for a hat – Jean simply cannot let the matter rest; Helena _will_ get a hat for Christmas. At least this way, Helena has a say in the hat’s color; that’s probably a good thing. 

While Jean and Helena browse that store, Myka sees a jeweler’s next door, and while she has scoffed at Pete when he went on about rings, while she _still_ scoffs at the idea, there’s also no denying that a ring is a symbol for something Myka does want Helena to have: reassurance that they’re in this together. 

But pregnancy makes people’s fingers swell up, so that’s a reason against a ring; also, the rings on display here are way too expensive. _Also_ also, people will notice when someone who never wears rings suddenly starts to wear one.

But… a necklace might work? Or a bracelet? There’ a row of leather bracelets in the window display, at a price point that Myka can actually afford. They’re dyed in many different colors (‘all-natural dyes!’), one of which is a dark, rich chocolate brown that looks just like Helena’s eyes did in the sunshine. In front of the bracelets is a box laying on its side, overflowing like an upturned miniature treasure chest with beads and charms meant to be attached to the bracelets, and one of them looks like a burnished bronze cogwheel, and that cinches the deal. Helena can wear this; people will think it’s just an accessory, because she likes mechanical physics or something, and nobody will ever know that gears and cogwheels are one of the things Myka thinks of when she thinks ‘Helena’. 

That’s a symbol, right there. 

Checking quickly to make sure that Helena and Jean are nowhere near done in the yarn store, Myka pops in and buys the bracelet and the charm. She declines when the store attendant offers to giftwrap them; she’s afraid she doesn’t have time, and she’s right: she has barely stepped back out and reassumed a slightly bored pose in front of the yarn store’s window before Jean and Helena come out. 

“Alright,” Jean beams, putting her wallet back in her purse, “that’s one Christmas gift sorted.” She turns to Myka. “Now, sweetheart, shall we go looking for something for you?”

They amble through the place for a while, meandering from display to display, and find a stall at the back that serves both alcoholic and non-alcoholic mulled drinks. 

“I would ask the two of you not to poke fun at me,” Helena sighs as she finishes her mug, “but I’m afraid I shall have to find a bathroom. Would you excuse me?”

Jean’s eyes sparkle with mirth as she nods. “Of course, dear. We understand.”

Myka nods. “And would never make fun of you, even though we all went after lunch.” She can’t help herself – the glare Helena gives her is just too cute to resist, as is the prim little sniff with which Helena turns away. “We’ll wait here,” Myka calls after Helena, who waves her acknowledgement.

“You guys are sweet,” Jean says, cupping Myka’s cheek for a moment with a mug-warmed hand. “I must admit I was… surprised, in the beginning, but really, seeing you two together, it makes sense. I can see how happy you are. And seeing how happy Helena was this morning…” Jean sighs, and her face clouds. “It just tears my heart to think that her parents… Well. She has us now, right? I just hope she knows it.”

Myka nods, unable to speak. She hopes the same. The bracelet, in its little paper bag, sits securely in her pocket, and she hopes it’ll help. 

“And how are you throughout all this, sweetheart?” Jean asks, tilting her head. “I’m not forgetting about you, and I hope you know that too.”

Myka takes a deep breath. Smiles. “I’m good, Mom.”

Jean narrows her eyes, just the tiniest bit. “You know you can talk to me about everything, right?”

“Yes, Mom.” Just, probably not about still not really being sure who Helena wants her to be with regards to the baby. Like, if Myka doesn’t know how to approach Helena with the matter, she sure as hell has no idea how to talk about it to her mom. And the fact that they haven’t talked about this and the rest is… well, embarrassing, at this point, so she can’t really bring that up either.

Jean pats Myka’s arm. “Good. Good.” She looks around to check that Helena isn’t within earshot, then leans close. “Do you already have a gift for her? Or do I need to distract her while you get her something?”

Myka chuckles. “All done,” she admits. “While you were in the yarn store, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh!” Jean laughs. “Sneaky! Good job! And did you find something nice?” 

Myka simply nods. She has no intention of telling her mom, no matter how much Jean fishes. 

Jean seems to realize that. She shoots Myka a mock-frustrated gaze. “Fine. Oh!” And just like that, she lightens up again. “We could also see if we can find something for Tracy. And Shaw! Do you think Shaw would like that paper craft chess set we saw?” 

“I’m pretty sure Shaw has, like, half a dozen chess sets already, Mom.”

“Good point, good point. Oh dear, that’s a puzzle. I guess I’ll ask Tracy,” Jean adds, more to herself. Then her face lights up. “Helena! There you are!”

Myka turns in time to see Helena roll her eyes, huff in frustration and turn pleading eyes on Jean. “Does this get any better?”

Jean winces. “I’m afraid not,” she says, and Helena huffs again.

Myka is surprised – this is the closest Helena has come to mentioning being pregnant in two weeks. 

Jean just laughs softly and rubs Helena’s arms, and it’s that sight that drives home to Myka that, however Helena might feel about being pregnant, at least she is softening towards Myka’s mother. Helena isn’t accepting of random touches as a rule; even Pete knows not to spontaneously hug her. Walking arm in arm earlier was a necessity, but this isn’t, and still Helena doesn’t flinch away from Jean’s hands, nor does she tense up.

It might not be a milestone, but it is a definite moment, and it drives some of the worry and bad conscience out of Myka’s thoughts.

She trails a little behind her mom and girlfriend as they walk back towards the city center and parking lot, watches the two of them talk and laugh, and when Jean takes Helena’s arm again on a bit of road she deems too slippery, again Helena lets it happen. A head with graying blonde hair and a mottled blue-and-green hat leans close to a head with raven hair and a red hat, and Myka snaps a picture with her phone – not that she’ll need help remembering, but maybe Helena might.

Jean also takes a few more photos with her camera, and then a well-meaning random guy offers to take a shot of ‘you and your daughters’, and while the offer is kind enough and the picture that he takes is decent enough, Myka does have to wonder at his eyesight. How could anyone, seriously _anyone_ think she and Helena-? Then again, adoptions are a thing. He was probably just trying to be nice.

Anyway, they got a picture of the three of them out of it. They’re all beaming at the camera, the backdrop is gorgeous with its snow-covered pines, mountains, and bright blue sky, and Myka doesn’t look too much like a dork for once. 

They make it home in time for dinner, and it’s Myka’s father who brings up the issue of money at last. “So, Helena,” he says when everyone’s done eating. “Any news about your fund?”

Helena drops her gaze, but nods. “Yes, sir.”

“Oooh,” Tracy goes, “do tell, H.G.?”

Myka is already drawing breath to tell her off, but Helena’s hand on her thigh stops her. 

“I’ve been meaning to find a way to bring it up,” Helena says. This time, the pink tingeing her cheeks that has nothing to do with cold air or winter sunshine. “I… have had the opportunity to look into the numbers, and…” she presses her lips together for a moment, then steels herself and goes on, “I, um, will gain access to…” She clears her throat and throws a glance at Tracy. “I need this to stay confidential, please.”

“Whoa,” Tracy breathes, and then nods fervently. “Promise.”

“Two point four million pounds sterling,” Helena says tonelessly. “Roughly.”

The table is silent for a moment, then Tracy whistles. “Sweet.”

“My great-aunt won the lottery, it appears, and chose to remain an anonymous winner-”

“Oh, you can do that, in England?” Tracy interrupts. “That’s helpful.”

Myka wants to kick her for interrupting, but the hand on her thigh clenching slightly stops her.

Helena just nods. “Absolutely agreed. She didn’t want to change her lifestyle too much, so that people wouldn’t catch on. So she set up funds for us instead. For her four grand-nieces and nephews. There are all kinds of stipulations and safeguards in place to make sure the money doesn’t go to our heads,” she adds with a quick shrug and smile, “but what it boils down to is that from January onwards I’ll receive a monthly payment, the amount of which I can adapt to my needs, and if I need to make a bigger purchase, I can do that too, I just need to talk it over with the fund’s manager to make sure I’m not, ah…” she presses her lips together and blushes again. 

“Not spending your money needlessly.” Jean nods. “Sounds very sensible to me.”

Warren Bering’s face is unreadable. “That’s, what,” he asks after a moment, “three million dollars?”

“Roughly, yes,” Helena replies.

He nods pensively. “That kind of money will set you up nicely, if you stick to sensible spending and investments.”

“Yes, sir. I intend to. Oh,” she adds, “for the record: I’ve also found out that I do, in fact, have health insurance. It’s mandatory for international students, and my parents did take out a policy for me.”

“Oh that is good news,” Jean says with a relieved smile. “Isn’t that good news, Warren?” 

He makes a sound that might seem non-committal, but Myka knows means he’s halfway pleased. Then he gives a short laugh, almost a bark. “What do you know,” he says, “a millionaire among us.”

“Not quite yet,” Helena reminds him. “Not till January fourth.”

“Sure, sure.” He waves her off. Then he gives another one of those bark-laughs. “Couldn’t interest you in investing into a bookstore, could I?”

“Warren,” Jean sighs. “Helena, sweetheart, don’t worry about that. The store is doing _just fine.”_

She has a point, but the word ‘investing’ buzzes in Myka’s thoughts; that is one way to gain the right to residency, she has learned. Maybe-?

But then the doorbell rings and Claudia Donovan is walking in, shoulders hunched and crowded with a backpack.

Rebecca, her foster mom, has cancer and will start chemo next week.

It takes a while until they’ve puzzled that one out, what with Claudia hanging off Myka’s shoulders and bawling so much she can’t speak coherently. Then Jean calls Jack and Rebecca, telling them Claudia’s here, getting the greenlight for Claudia staying, and in all the hubbub, there is one quiet moment where Helena touches Myka’s arm and-

“Claudia needs you more than I do – I’ll call Leena to take me home, alright?”

-and Myka just nods, too preoccupied with her sobbing charge, and the next time she has a moment to think, Helena’s gone. Wilbur the grizzly bear is back on Myka’s bed, though, with a hastily scribbled post-it attached that reads ‘Please make me smell like you again.’ When Myka looks around under the pretense of making space in her room for Claudia, she finds that Callisto is no longer here, and yes, Callisto has been losing Helena’s scent too, so that makes sense. 

Somehow, in the space of two weeks, it’s become odd to have someone in your room overnight who is on a separate mattress, who isn’t Helena. Claudia takes a long time to settle, and there are a few occasions when Myka almost asks if the kid wants to snuggle. There’s at least one occasion when she hears muffled sniffles. But Claudia doesn’t say anything and Myka doesn’t know how, and Wilbur smells just like Helena and Myka presses him to her to help her fall asleep. She just hopes that Claudia won’t notice in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will go up on Dec 18!


	32. Helena

Helena knows she’s evading things. 

It’s not like she can easily forget she’s pregnant: she’s no longer taking the pill but pre-natal vitamins instead, just to start with. She is a bit proud of how she managed to camouflage them as just the plain old vitamins everyone seems to take here. Steve was about to toss his empty pill bottle away and she caught him from the corner of her eyes and asked for it, claiming she wanted to check the ingredients to see if she wanted take the same supplement herself. After that it was just a matter of cleaning out the bottle and pouring her pills into it.

So, every time she takes one she has a reminder, although truth be told, it’s easy to push that one to the back of her mind, since the pill bottle’s label is for your bog-standard vitamin supplement, not prenatal ones. 

Every time her back twinges or her abdomen cramps up – which is happening more and more these days – she has her reminder. 

Sometimes even snuggling with a stuffed grizzly bear is a reminder, because surely expecting mothers shouldn’t snuggle with plush toys anymore.

She just takes all of these reminders and pushes them down, locks them away deep, deep inside.

Pete is so nervous to inadvertently spill the beans that he barely says anything when they interact, and that’s not often, because he has wrestling matches and meets and tournaments all the time now, trying to win his scholarship. Shaw really doesn’t talk a lot, and Tracy is sticking to her promise, too. So, a lot of the time Helena isn’t talking to anyone about the whole matter, and that makes not thinking about it easy as pie.

And Myka-

Helena _knows_ she needs to talk to Myka. There’s any number of things she needs to talk over with her. But there’s also Claudia, eyes red-rimmed and glassy as she sits in class, quiet even in comp sci. There’s pop quizzes and tests and essays and Helena doesn’t dare let her grades deteriorate because surely people will notice and wonder why, and focusing on homework and optional reading is easier than-

And then that Tuesday afternoon in the attic, Myka all but begs Helena to take her mind off things, and sure, if Helena is allowed evasion, surely Myka is too. The first thing that pops into Helena’s mind isn’t what Myka wants, though; Myka is on her period again, and again, the cramps are bad. Helena ends up playing the piano for her, all the pieces of the Carnival of the Animals, complete with their poems, except for the Swan because while that’s the one that Helena loves best, it’s also the saddest piece of them all, and Myka is on the verge of crying as it is; she _does_ cry over the Aquarium and claims it’s just because it’s so beautiful. 

Helena digs deep in her mind for all the ways in which she tried to cheer Charlie up when they practiced together as kids. That, too, is easier than thinking about other things, and much easier than actually talking.

And then Thursday comes around and Claudia is still sleeping in Myka’s bedroom and Myka is antsy because she’s about to get news from Yale on Friday, and not even music helps today; Myka is _brooding._ It opens a pit in Helena’s stomach; she wants to help, but has no idea how, except that surely talking about pregnancy-related questions and problems is not the way to do it.

It’s the first Thursday in months that Helena is at Mrs. Frederic’s for dinner. 

Friday, Myka is almost useless in physics class, completely preoccupied in English lit, and a no-show in environmental science, the last class of the day. Helena learns this from Claudia, who shares the class with Myka and is frantic to the point of hyperventilation. Helena sits Claudia down in the library with Mrs. Lattimer and gets to searching.

Myka is not in the attic. Not in any of the rooms below it. Not in any bathroom or corridor dead-end. 

Myka doesn’t respond to Helena’s texts, and while phones aren’t allowed in class, it doesn’t seem as though Myka is in school at all, and Helena is getting just a tad worried the longer her phone doesn’t buzz with a reply. 

Sure enough, Myka’s car isn’t in the parking lot. 

In fact, no one has seen Myka since lunchtime. Tracy left after the first post-lunch period; she’s volunteering on Fridays, and so Helena can’t reach her to ask if she has any idea of where Myka could be.

Helena dithers for a bit before messaging Myka’s mother – Jean would know if Myka was home, but if Myka isn’t, her mother is going to start worrying too. 

Jean’s reply comes ten unending minutes later and is negative – and worried.

Helena heads to the gym to find Pete.

The look on his face when she tells him confirms, no: _heightens_ her worry.

“This isn’t like her,” he mutters, digging through his locker for his phone. “No missed messages or calls; let me try and call her real quick.” Helena refrains from repeating she’s already done that; he dials, waits, swears. “Voicemail.” He shakes his head. “Gimme five minutes to shower and pack up, then we’ll go find her.”

Helena runs up to the library to inform his mother and Claudia while he cleans up, and sits in the passenger seat of his truck as he drives to places he thinks Myka could be. He knows Myka, after all, but every spot he tries, they come up empty. When he calls his mother, who’s home by then, asking if Myka is there, Helena knows he’s running out of ideas.

“Look, H.G.,” he says, and Helena knows Jane Lattimer has answered in the negative too, “if there’s anyone I’m not worried about, it’s Myka, okay? Maybe her phone just died.”

Helena stares at him. They both know Myka doesn’t go anywhere with her phone’s battery at sixty percent _minimum._ “Pete.” She finds it difficult to draw breath, but she has to try and make him realize. “You do know what day it is?”

He looks apprehensive. “Friday?”

Helena balls her fists to keep from punching him; bites her teeth together to keep from screaming in frustration. “The day that colleges tell early applicants the results of their application.”

Pete’s features freeze. “Shit,” he hisses. His eyes start roaming: dashboard, window, Helena’s face, passenger window, windscreen, Helena’s face again. “Shit,” he repeats. “Okay. Okay.” He takes a deep breath, runs his hands down his face, then plops them in his lap. “Do you think Claudia can track Myka’s phone or something?”

“Do you honestly think we would have this problem if she could?” It was the first thing Claudia told Helena when she found her: that she couldn’t.

Pete knows that Claudia’s been staying at the Berings the past week, and why. He grimaces. “Good point.”

And then Helena’s phone buzzes with a message, and she almost drops it in her haste to look at it.

It’s not Myka, though. 

“Walter?!” Pete says in utter shock. “What the hell is _Walter Sykes_ doing texting you?”

“I have no idea,” Helena says and taps on ‘accept’ – maybe Walter knows where Myka is? Through some coincidence of galactic proportions? Maybe?

 **Walter Sykes:** I know about you and the Ice Queen. If you want to prevent the whole school from finding out, drop by tomorrow, 5pm at Cheyenne Mountain trailhead parking lot.

 **Walter Sykes:** [proof.jpg preview]

Helena’s insides wind themselves one notch tighter. 

“What the hell?” Pete whispers. “Do you think he _kidnapped_ her?”

“What? No.” Helena shakes her head. Walter is a sleazebag, nothing more. “No, this is just blackmail.” And frankly, she’s been half expecting it. Things have been too smooth; she should have known it couldn’t last, she berates herself.

“Do you think he sent it to her too?”

Helena wants to shake her head again, but hesitates for a moment. Perhaps he… But, “No,” she says again, decisively. “I don’t think so. Blackmail works best when you isolate your target. He’s picked me because he thinks I’m more likely to give him what he wants. More likely to feel threatened enough to comply.” He’s not wrong. Especially right now. She doesn’t even want to think about him; if he wants money, she’ll just shove whatever she has at him – if only she can re-focus on Myka after. 

Pete swears under his breath. “Are you sure?” And then, “What do you think he wants?”

“Not one hundred percent,” she shrugs, “and no idea.” And no capacity to wonder. Myka. She needs to- _they_ need to focus on Myka.

She looks at the message again. The preview of the photo Walter has attached is blurred to the point where Helena has no idea what it will show when she taps it. The only thing she can say is that it doesn’t seem to contain nude skin; it’s just greys and browns and greens with the merest patches of pink.

“No, H.G., don’t,” Pete says when her finger hovers over the download button in the picture’s center. 

She taps it anyway. At this point, she figures, she might as well get it over with. 

It’s her and Myka, leaned against Myka’s car, in an embrace Helena still remembers. It’s a wide-angle shot and slightly blurry; snapped on a phone from a good distance away, Helena is sure. Despite the fuzziness, the two of them are recognizable enough. Her breath hisses out between her teeth. This was after their visit to Doctor Calder. There hadn’t been any other cars in the-

“I know where this is,” Helena says, the sudden realization screaming through her veins, replacing ice with hot coals. Not because of Walter – but because of _Myka._ This is one place they haven’t looked yet. “Not the address,” she adds, “but – it’s an abandoned amusement park?” Surely if Myka knows the place, Pete does too?

“Yes,” he calls out, and turns on the car. “Yes, H.G.!”

His truck is old and big and unwieldy, but he breaks half the speed limits in the city on their way, and they get there in just under ten minutes. There are no cars in it, just traffic going by in the street.

Except Myka’s faded red hatchback, smack center, facing the parking lot’s entrance. 

It doesn’t look as if anybody’s in it.

Helena’s fingers fumble on the door handle, and Pete dares to take notice, dares to comment. “Maybe you better stay here?” he suggests. “Like, isn’t stress bad for… you know?”

Helena’s fingers twitch to eviscerate him. “In which reality,” she asks in the iciest tones she’s capable of, “would I be _less_ stressed waiting here looking on than I would be coming with you and seeing for myself?”

Pete stares at her for a moment, then sags. “Yeah, no, I didn’t think so. I just…” He shrugs. “Just… Don’t wo-”

She clenches her fist around his coat sleeve, right up at his shoulder. “If you tell me not to worry, so help me I will-”

“Alright, alright! Jeez!” He opens his door. “Come with if you have to, but let me get to her first, okay?”

She hastens after him. “She’s my _girlfriend!”_

“And _my_ best friend,” he snaps over his shoulder. Then he stops, so abruptly that she almost runs into him, and turns to her with urgent eyes. “Listen, H.G., this isn’t a pissing contest about who cares about her the most, alright? Just… if there’s something wrong, and I’m not saying that there is, just… just _if_ there is, okay? I don’t want you to go into shock or something, and for me to have two emergencies on my hands. Please? I’m trying to do the right thing here, okay?”

Helena’s stomach uses this precise moment to lurch, and she grudgingly concedes the point with a scoff and a gesture towards Myka’s car. “Get on with it, then.” She knows his father was a firefighter, knows he knows emergency procedures, knows that this is where his thoughts are at. It doesn’t help her in the slightest.

Without a further word, her turns and approaches the car on the driver’s side. The driver’s seat is empty; Helena can see that even from a few yards away. Then he shouts, “She’s here!” and opens the door to tilt the driver’s seat forward. There’s a beat, and then he adds, “She’s okay!”

Helena’s knees almost buckle with relief. She takes a few steps and splays her hands on the bonnet of Myka’s car to keep herself upright, swallows with all her might to keep the contents of her stomach from coming up. There’s an exchange of words within the car that she can’t really hear over the ringing in her ears.

Maybe Pete wasn’t too far off with his worry.

He’s in front of her suddenly, arms wide and low. “Hey, H.G.,” he says, “I need to tell you something, and I need you to not murder me, okay? I’m just the messenger here. Hey, are you alright?”

“Peachy,” she presses out, and, “What?” She scoots her hands across the bonnet, one over the other, making her way to the driver’s door. She will get to Myka, and if it’s the last thing she does.

“She, um… Myka says she can’t see you.” The words come fast, and nervous, and slurred. 

For a moment, she stares at him, waiting for the syllables to make sense. Then she shakes her head. They don’t. What he’s saying does not make any sense whatsoever. 

“Helena.” He never uses her full name. Never uses this tone of voice, gentle and slightly anxious and so, so firm. “Hey, Helena, _please._ She says she can’t right now, okay? And hey, I know that’s not what you want to hear,” he goes on, and now he’s full-on body-blocking her, “and I know you’re worried, but please, I… I’ll stay with her, okay? I’ll make sure she’s alright. She’ll be alright. I promise. Just…” His eyes are pleading now. “Can you get back to my car? Call my mom, tell her we found her? Please? Call Claud, tell her not to worry?”

Helena pushes herself away from the car, trying to get around him to the door, but he grabs her and holds her and he’s taller and stronger, no matter how much she struggles. “Myka!” she chokes out, and the passenger door opens and Myka stumbles out, half falling, half running, streaks across the parking lot to Pete’s truck and hides inside. “Myka!” Helena shouts, throwing herself against Pete’s arms. She tries to fight him, get him off her, but he has her arms pinned and is taller and stronger. “Let _go_ of me!”

“Calm down and I will.” His voice is still firm, still anxious, still gentle.

Her response is to try to head-butt him. It always works in the movies, but it doesn’t work here. Her legs kick, trying to find his, but that’s not working either, and then he has her bundled into the driver’s seat of Myka’s car.

“Calm _down!”_ he shouts. “You’re making it worse!”

At that, she freezes. Fury continues to rage within her, but at least her demeanor is quiet now, and that means he’s slowly letting go. Still, though. “How the hell am I making things worse?” she hisses.

“You’re keeping me from her!”

“I-!” she scoffs. _“You’re_ keeping _me_ from her!”

“I told you she said she can’t see you! Look, I’m sorry, H.G., I really am, but you need to listen to her. You love her, right? You want what’s best for her, yes?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then just- just do what she’s asking, H.G., _please.”_

He’s breathing hard and looking desperate, and Helena breaks. Sways in her seat, clamps her hands around the steering wheel to ground herself. “Why? _Why_ is she-”

“I don’t know,” he says. His voice sounds like pity, and Helena grits her teeth. “But I promise I will take care of her. Okay? I’ll do whatever she needs. H.G., I promise. Just… just… can you take her car home to my mom’s and wait for us there? Like, you _can_ drive, right?”

Helena feels like shrugging, and lacks the energy even for that. If Myka doesn’t want to see her, she might as well leave. And yes, technically, she can drive. 

“Here, give me your phone,” Pete says and, when she does, taps on it a few times. “Just… just follow that, okay? I’ll call ahead so Mom knows what’s going on. Just follow the directions. Alright?”

With a grimace and a small puffed-out breath, Helena finally finds the strength to shrug. Her fingers find the keys in the ignition and turn it; nothing happens. 

“Brakes,” Pete reminds her in the softest voice.

Helena grits her teeth, steps on the brakes, starts the car. 

“Wait,” Pete says, and reaches into the car and across Helena, half hugging her as he buckles her seatbelt in. “There. All good to go.” He pats her shoulder and she wants to punch him again.

Instead she drives.

When her phone tells her that she has reached her destination, she has no idea how, or how much time has passed, much less if she’s broken any bloody road rules. She might have run every single red light for all she knows, driven the wrong side of the road all the way – no clue. She finds herself in the driveway of Pete’s house, finds Mrs. Lattimer standing next to the car door in the same way Pete stood a moment ago, calm, solicitous. Finds herself angry again, no: furious. Her teeth are grinding together audibly; her fingers are strangling the steering wheel. 

Pete’s mother tells her to put the car in park in the same gentle voice Pete had used, and it doesn’t do anything to calm Helena down, on the contrary. 

The only reason why she follows the instructions at all is that this is Myka’s car and the Lattimer garage it’s parked in front of; it wouldn’t do to run one into the other. 

When she’s out of the car, Mrs. Lattimer gives her a piercing look, then leads her not to the door, but around the house to the backyard. She stops at an old tree stump, asks Helena to wait, returns a few moments later with an old, scratched baseball bat and a string bag full of drinks cans. She puts one of the cans on the stump and hands Helena the bat. “Go to town,” she says.

Helena stares at her. 

“You’re mad. Angry. Get it out of your system.” Mrs. Lattimer points at the can. “Flatten the sucker. Just try not to hit it over the fence, okay? Paolo hates that.” When Helena still doesn’t react, Mrs. Lattimer heaves a sigh. “Give me that,” she says, gesturing at the baseball bat. Helena hands it over; Mrs. Lattimer raises it above her head like an axe. “Like this.”

She brings the bat down and smashes the empty can with all her might. Her hit is a bit off-center; the can flies off the stump with the force of it and comes to rest fifteen yards away, mangled and on its side. 

A new one is placed on the stump, and the bat is held out to Helena. “You don’t need showing more than once, I’m sure.”

Helena doesn’t. 

Snatches of Mars, disjointed and dissonant, swim in her head as she thwacks one can after another. When the bag is empty, she retrieves the cans from around the yard, whacks them again until they’re flattened, wallops them until her arms burn and her swings tremble, until the bat’s tip hits the floor with a dull thud and she stares at the stump with just as dull a sensation in her brain. 

She knows what’s supposed to come after Mars, after the Bringer of War. And there’s Mrs. Lattimer, taking the bat from Helena’s unresisting hands and leading her inside. A moment later, Helena finds herself in the Lattimer living room, blanket around her shoulders and cup of tea in her hand. 

She blinks. The tea smells bitter; Assam, if she’s any judge, steeped too long. She takes a sip anyway. Bitter is a flavor that fits right in with her mood, after all. 

“Better?”

It takes Helena a moment to parse the word and make out that it’s ‘better’ with an e, not ‘bitter’ with an i. Sometimes she longs for the crisp diction of RP, or at least English vowel sounds instead of American ones. Then she contemplates the question. “A bit.”

Mrs. Lattimer nods. “Anger is important,” she says. “It tells us something’s wrong with what’s happening to us.”

Helena wants to laugh in her face because it really doesn’t take a genius to figure _that_ one out. Instead, she just shrugs. It’s an easy reaction, and accepted often enough.

“What or who are you angry at, then?” 

Helena grits her teeth. The answer sits right on her tongue, but Mrs. Lattimer is not the person she wants to tell it to. 

“You can keep stalling,” Mrs. Lattimer says, “or you can start talking. Either way is fine with me. What’s _not_ going to happen, though, is that I’ll let you talk to anyone else in this mood.”

That gets Helena’s attention. Her eyes land on the older woman, furious and burning. _“Let_ me?” 

Mrs. Lattimer nods, calm and collected as a swan on a pond. “Let you,” she confirms. 

Helena can feel her blood start to boil again, but before she can say anything, Mrs. Lattimer raises her hands. 

“Don’t get angry at _me_ before you’re finished with your other anger. Who or what is your anger for?”

“Myka.” The word comes out hot and flat, like spitting out blood when you’ve bitten your tongue. 

Mrs. Lattimer makes a non-committal sound. “Why?”

“Because she-” Helena bites off her shout, takes a deep breath, schools her voice into calmness. “She didn’t want to see me. Didn’t want to talk to me. Sent me away like I was some kind of- like I was nobody.”

Mrs. Lattimer nods, slowly. “So. Postulating that anger is an alert to you being not treated right – how, would you say, were you wronged?”

“I’m not nobody! I’m h-” Helena stops, shudders. She can’t even bring the words out, so she casts around for everything else that was wrong. “She didn’t tell me. She just disappeared. She could have been dead in a ditch for all I knew!”

“So she made you worried.”

“Yes!”

“And then she didn’t react the way you expected her to.”

“Yes!”

“And your expectation matters.”

“Yes!”

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much?” Mrs. Lattimer repeats. 

Helena frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Do your expectations matter more or less than the other person’s need to do what’s right for them?”

“What?” Helena is more confused than angry now. What is Mrs. Lattimer getting at?

“Have you ever run away because things were too much?”

Mrs. Lattimer’s question is unbalancing. Helena’s thoughts immediately go to that day in the attic, to Myka saying ‘I care about you’, to Helena bolting. And then they go to Pete’s birthday, right in this very house, when she bolted again. She snaps her mouth shut, renewed anger crowding her eyebrows. 

Mrs. Lattimer nods, guessing the answer. “Would you say the person or people you ran away from had different expectations of how that situation would go?”

“But I came back,” Helena mutters in protest. Which is fifty percent true – she ran twice and came back once. She knows what Mrs. Lattimer is getting at; she’s not stupid: so Myka needed to bolt, just like Helena had. “To her, not someone else.”

“That’s another expectation you have?” Mrs. Lattimer’s tone is free of judgment, simply curious, but the blow lands anyway.

Myka chose Pete. Of course Helena hadn’t expected that.

Helena turns aside. Drinks from her cold, bitter tea. “I guess I shouldn’t.” 

“There’s very little should and shouldn’t when it comes to emotions,” Mrs. Lattimer says lightly. “Your feelings don’t care about should or shouldn’t; they just are. How you _act_ on them, though, that impacts other people, and there’s should and shouldn’t aplenty in that.”

“How do you know all this?” Asking that is easier than thinking about what she might have done wrong. She could also ask where Claudia is, for that matter. She probably should. Call her, too, if she’s not here.

Mrs. Lattimer’s smile says, very plainly, that she knows that Helena is evading. Still, she indulges her. “After Dan died, Pete had a lot of trouble dealing with his emotions. That’s his baseball bat out there. We would run out of cans for him to flatten, quite often in the beginning, less so as time went on. Wrestling helped, too.” Her gaze comes back from the past and lands on Helena again. “It’s alright to be angry. Sometimes it’s not people we’re angry at, but life. The universe. Everything. Because life sure as hell isn’t fair sometimes. It wasn’t fair that Dan died; of course it wasn’t,” she says, and a hint of anger glints in her eyes. “But it was nobody’s fault. There was no one to be angry at. And it’s important to make that distinction, because it sure as hell isn’t fair to take _that_ kind of anger out on other people.”

It’s like her words thicken the air, make it difficult to breathe. Helena opens her mouth, trying to find words of her own to break the spell, but none will come. 

“Are you sure,” Mrs. Lattimer says, eyes piercing once more, “that your anger isn’t that kind of anger? Part of it, anyway?”

And there it is. The air is solid now.

Helena’s fingers want to curl around a baseball bat that isn’t there. Very, very carefully, she sets down the teacup and clenches her hands into fists.

They’re shaking.

“Who are you angry at?” Mrs. Lattimer prompts in a quiet voice.

“My parents,” Helena whispers.

“Fair. Who else? What else?”

A flinch of agony. “Life, for taking Aunt Tee away.”

“Valid. What else?”

“Everything!” Helena flings the word out there. “Stupid- _stupid_ pills, hormones, stupid- _me,_ stupid _fucking_ ovaries, stupid-” she snaps her mouth shut so hard her teeth hurt. Grinds them against each other so hard her jaw hurts. 

She longs for that baseball bat, wants the violence of just _hitting_ things, needs the satisfaction of seeing them shatter.

A throw pillow is presented to her, and she punches it with a wordless roar of rage. It’s nowhere near as effective, but at least it takes the edge off. Her fingers dig into it, grip, tear – the sound of ripping fabric is _good._ She curls around it, knees pulling up to keep it in place as she punches it against her thighs-

And a hand catches hers, with surprising strength. “Do not hurt yourself. We can go outside again if you need to smash more cans, but I won’t let you hurt yourself.”

“But-”

“I know it hurts. I know you hurt.” Mrs. Lattimer’s voice is calm and matter-of-fact. “Giving yourself bruises isn’t gonna change that, it’ll just make you sore tomorrow.”

“It’s not fair,” Helena complains.

“I know.”

“It’s not fair.” This time it’s nothing more than a whisper. 

“I know,” Mrs. Lattimer repeats. “It isn’t. But turning that into unkindness towards yourself or other people isn’t fair either. Sometimes we just have to accept that life has shat on us, clean up the mess and carry on.”

“I’m pregnant.” This is nothing more than a whisper, too.

“I figured.” Mrs. Lattimer’s voice is wry.

“It happened before I came here,” Helena adds quickly; she needs to tell Mrs. Lattimer that. “I didn’t know until a few weeks ago; I’d _never_ cheat on Myka or lie to her.”

Mrs. Lattimer is silent, and when Helena looks up, she’s met with another piercing look, until Mrs. Lattimer nods. “No, you wouldn’t. Good.” She regards Helena for a moment longer, then asks, “Does she know? That you’re pregnant? And that you didn’t cheat?”

“W- of course. Yes. Of course she knows.”

“Good.” Mrs. Lattimer doesn’t say more.

“I think it’s… my fault, too,” Helena admits after a while. Mrs. Lattimer doesn’t reply, but her silence is invitation to go on. “That she’s upset. I didn’t talk to her. She wanted to talk, and I chickened out of it, time and again.” Helena looks at the pillow clenched in her hands. It’s torn along several seams, and right down the center of one panel of fabric. The filling is, thankfully, encased in its own case and thus not falling out. She carefully sets it on the table, wondering if she should apologize even though the wretched thing was _handed_ to her. “I never gave her a chance to talk.” Then, like a compass needle caught in a magnet, her thoughts return to the heart of the matter. “And now she doesn’t want to see me.” 

“She was overwhelmed,” Jane Lattimer says. “People do incomprehensible things sometimes, when they’re overwhelmed.”

Helena sits in silence, but she can’t sit still. She picks up the teacup again and turns it over and over in her hands. “Why him and not me?”

“Because,” Mrs. Lattimer says with a shrug. “Sometimes a sick body needs water, and sometimes it needs food. That doesn’t make one better than the other. Nobody can be everything to someone else, that’s not how we work.”

Helena doesn’t reply to that; she’s not sure she’d agree, but she doesn’t want to fight. Not about this. 

Mrs. Lattimer seems content with not talking. There’s no disapproval coming off her; surely she would have said something by now if she disapproved, right? 

“I just want to make this right,” Helena whispers. “But how can I when she doesn’t want to see me?”

Mrs. Lattimer breaks her silence with a chuckle. “Oh, that one is easy.” 

Helena is so baffled she can’t stop herself from looking over at the woman. 

Mrs. Lattimer smiles at her. “You just do other things that will make it right; things that don’t require seeing each other or talking with each other.”

Helena knows exactly what she means; the memory of half a dozen unread books sits heavy in its own special pit of guilt in her thoughts. “But-”

“Not everything can be talked out, you know.” Mrs. Lattimer is still smiling. “When my husband and I fought over how he always left the kitchen a mess when he cooked, you better believe he had to damn well clean up before he was allowed to come apologize.”

Helena chews on her lip. She nods slowly. There are things she has avoided doing. Hell, there are things she has avoided even thinking about. “Some of those things I can’t do without her, though,” she says. 

“Then prepare them right up to the point where you can’t do no more,” Mrs. Lattimer says with a shrug. She contemplates Helena for a moment, clearly on the verge of saying something more. Then she reaches a decision and goes on, “Listen, Helena, Myka… Myka is a helper by nature, and by nurture a perfectionist. She will take care of people who need taken care of, and she’ll run herself ragged doing that before she’ll go to anyone for help, because she’s been told time and again that she needs to do things on her own. You need to be aware of that if you want to help her overcome it.”

The appeal startles Helena. It’s not that she doesn’t want to help Myka; she’d do anything. She just doesn’t know- “How?”

“By not letting it come that far,” Mrs. Lattimer replies, quick as lightning, as if she’s waited for that very question. “By recognizing signals for when she’s getting swamped before it overwhelms her. By encouraging her to tell you, to ask your help, and by reacting well when she does.” Her words are gut punches, fast and forceful. Mrs. Lattimer notices their impact; her face softens. “Not this time, obviously,” she goes on in gentler tones. “That ship has sailed; you didn’t know, you couldn’t prevent it, what’s done is done. But you can work on it, for the future; you need to learn it, and so does she. She needs to realize she can lean on you just as much as she is willing to let you lean on her, and vice versa.” 

That… makes sense. Those are instructions even if Helena is not exactly clear on how to fulfil them. But she can work with that.

Mrs. Lattimer purses her lips. “We are all of us able to lean on many people, not just our immediate family or partners. And that’s _good,”_ she emphasizes. “Take Claudia: she didn’t pick her brother; she came to Myka for help.” Helena starts a little – that’s right. “Right now,” Mrs. Lattimer goes on, “Myka is leaning on Pete. Because she knows she can; she’s had years to learn that she can, that it’s okay to be weak in front of him. It’s not exactly something she’s learned at home, you see?”

Helena’s mouth slackens as the truth dawns on her – with a father as demanding as Warren Bering, no wonder Myka has a hard time showing weakness. And maybe a girlfriend who needs and needs and needs is… is just as demanding, in a way. Maybe Myka thinks she can’t show Helena weakness, either. 

“One more thing,” Mrs. Lattimer says quietly. “How much of your anger was fear, would you say? Fear that you didn’t have her anymore, to lean on?”

As quiet as they are, the words fill Helena’s mind entirely, echoing and reverberating long after Mrs. Lattimer has fallen silent. The teacup sits motionless in her hands, all but forgotten.

“Being afraid of that is valid,” Mrs. Lattimer’s voice is gentle still, kind and understanding. “Especially if you have only a small number of people that you feel you can rely on. Like I said, your feelings don’t care about should or shouldn’t, they just are. But you need to see them for what they are before you act on them, or your actions might be unfair, you understand? Fear and anger both can make us lash out at people who don’t deserve it; they can be bad advisors if we don’t understand what we’re afraid of or angry about. The good thing is, though, that we can learn how to recognize them. Just like we can learn to ask for help. The way I see it, that’s the lesson that’s coming for Myka – and you,” Mrs. Lattimer adds, giving Helena her most knowing look yet. “Being pregnant isn’t easy; being pregnant for the first time even less so. Being pregnant for the first time when you’re still a teenager? I know how hard that is. So ask people for help. Not just Myka. I know you’ve learned not to rely on anyone but yourself, and I know you haven’t had years to get to know us – and yes,” she smirks, “I’m including myself here, but you made a good start trusting Myka; just take a similar leap of faith with us. I promise you it’s safe to do so. And it will lighten the load on Myka’s shoulders too.” She tilts her head at Helena. “Who else knows?”

“Myka’s family. Tracy’s-” Helena stumbles for a moment, then says, “partner,” and hopes Mrs. Lattimer hasn’t noticed. “Pete, and Myka’s gynecologist.”

“I would put my hand into fire for Jean’s trustworthiness,” Mrs. Lattimer says, “and my son’s. As for Warren…” She smiles wryly. “The absolute need to do the right thing that Myka has – she gets it from him. He might not be easy on you, but he will not throw you to the wolves; you can trust me on that. I can’t speak to the others, and to be quite frank I don’t even know if my judgement matters to you, but there you have it.” She makes a voilà gestures. Then she nods her chin at Helena. “What about Leena? Mrs. Frederic?” 

“Mrs. Frederic mustn’t know,” Helena says quickly. “She’d have to tell my parents and…” she pauses for a moment, wondering how to lay out the matter in as few words as possible, but before she can line them up, Mrs. Lattimer nods. 

“And you don’t want that.” She subjects Helena to yet another bottom-of-her-soul stare, then nods. “I assume you have your reasons,” she says. “And Leena?”

“If I told her, I’d have to ask her to keep it a secret from her aunt for me. I won’t do that.”

Mrs. Lattimer gives that a slow nod, and suddenly Helena wonders if employed teachers have to report student pregnancies to headmistresses. Before she can panic about that, though, Mrs. Lattimer pats her arm. “I’m not going to be the one to tell Irene, either,” she reassures Helena. 

Relief floods Helena so fast that her stomach twists. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Lattimer hums in reply, then asks, “Are you thinking of keeping the baby? Giving it up for adoption? Terminating the pregnancy?”

“I want to keep them.” Helena says it as decisively as she can; she doesn’t want to go through the reasons, not again. To underline her words, she puts the teacup down and crosses her arms.

Mrs. Lattimer doesn’t ask, though. “Then let me tell you one thing about young parents that not everybody knows,” she says instead. “There are some ways in which being pregnant this young is actually helpful. Now don’t get me wrong,” she adds, holding up her hands, “I’m not advocating getting pregnant in senior year as a good idea overall; it’s plainly not. What I _am_ saying is that it doesn’t have to be the catastrophe some people make it out to be. Not when you have people who can help you, people you can lean on; and you have those.” She says the last words with a twinkle in her eye and another ‘well, here-I-am’ gesture. “The biggest plus on your side right now is that young as you are, you have the energy and resilience of a young body and mind to help you through this. Let me tell you, even the seven years between Jeannie and Pete have taught me that that is worth a lot. And it’s not just about handling pregnancy and a newborn; your kid will hit puberty when you’re in your thirties, not in your forties or fifties. Believe me, that’s a bonus. 

“The toughest thing, on the other hand, will be school. Not just the kids talking; that might not even be all that bad, considering. But you’ll have other things on your mind than retaining what you learn in class, and frankly, that’s how it has to be; your body is making a new human being – calculus is the least of its worries. Some kids manage to graduate despite that, others don’t. But you’re not really graduating anyway, aren’t you?”

Helena shakes her head. “No. I was planning on flying back to England to sit the A-level exams, but they’re in May, right around my due date. I wouldn’t even be allowed on a plane.”

“Maybe that’s not all that bad, though. You can re-take them? The year after, I assume?” At Helena’s nod of confirmation, Mrs. Lattimer sighs. “Well, there you go then. One year is not that great a loss. Will you be staying here or returning home?”

“I want to stay,” Helena says immediately. “For the same reason I don’t want my parents to know. I’ll be eighteen in a month, and I’ll have money then; I’ll be alright. I just… they _cannot_ know.”

“You don’t just need money, though,” Mrs. Lattimer points out. “You’ll need a visa too. Once you no longer qualify as a student, your visa is invalid.”

Helena stares at her, then drops her head in her hands with a groan. “Why can’t it be easy?” she asks of the universe. Then she realizes something. Myka knows. “Myka has said something about visas,” she admits. “Probably one of those things I can look into and get done on my own.”

She hears Mrs. Lattimer chuckle softly. “Yep.” Then there is a hand patting her arm again. “Look,” the woman says with a sigh, “I understand not wanting it to be true, not wanting to deal with it. Not wanting to think of all the ways in which your life is going to do a one-eighty. Not wanting to have all your plans overturned. Believe me, I absolutely understand; I felt the same when I learned I was pregnant with Jeannie. It’s hard. No two ways about it; it’s hard. It’s unexpected, and it’s unfair, and it might not have been your fault and no one ever even asked you but you still have to deal with it somehow. Denial isn’t going to help you, and I know you know that,” she adds when Helena draws a guilty breath, “so I won’t belabor it. It’s been a rough day. Not just for you, though, so when Pete and Myka get here, don’t jump into it with her. She doesn’t need that, not today, and I doubt it would do you any good either. Get some rest, come back together tomorrow. You’re both welcome to stay the night if you want; I’ll talk to Mrs. Frederic. I promise I won’t tell her about your being pregnant,” Mrs. Lattimer says with a sigh, “if _you_ promise me in turn to do so as soon as you safely can. She’s your principal; she needs to know, if only for insurance reasons.”

Helena nods. “I was planning on telling her when I’m eighteen, Mrs. Lattimer, I promise. Once I’m a legal adult, she isn’t obligated to tell my parents.”

Mrs. Lattimer raises one eyebrow. “Good,” she says. “And do me a favor – at this point? Feel free to call me Jane.” She gives Helena’s arm one last pat and gets up to make more tea. 

Helena inhales and is surprised at how shaky it is. She holds up a hand and it’s shaking too, and she softly laughs at herself. Rough day indeed. Part of her wants to just pull the blanket over herself and curl up and sleep. And suddenly she realizes that she wants Myka’s arms around her for that, wants at least the reassurance that Myka is close, but- 

But Myka needs her. And Helena is just pregnant; she hasn’t had to take care of a hurt and confused Claudia, she hasn’t had an email from the college she’s been working her arse off to get into. Myka has, and Myka needs her now. 

And as if fate has heard her, there are footsteps outside the door.

“Mom! We’re back!” Pete hollers out.

Helena is frozen to the spot. She isn’t visible from the entryway; what if Pete and Myka come in here? What if seeing Helena is still too much for Myka?

“I’m in the kitchen making dinner!” Jane hollers back. “Helena’s in the-”

Her words drown in the rumble of footsteps flying down the stairs, and then Helena can hear a soft ‘oomph’ as two bodies collide. 

She risks getting up, trying to catch a glimpse around the doorway – Claudia has launched herself at Myka in a full-body hug that Pete is holding up from behind Myka. Claudia’s back is towards Helena, and Myka’s face leans across Claudia’s shoulders eyes closed, so Helena carefully withdraws and sits back down on her sofa. Claudia needs Myka more; she can give the two of them some space, and then, later, Myka can decide for herself if-

“Helena?”

-she wants to see Helena. 

Helena gulps and sits up straighter, twisting her fingers into the blanket around her shoulders. “Yes?”

“I… I am sorry,” Myka says. She’s standing in the door, fidgeting with her sleeve; Pete and Claudia are nowhere to be seen. “I’m so sorry for making you worry.”

Helena shakes her head, and it’s so easy to do that when she’s so light with relief. “It’s alright. I understand. It’s not like I haven’t done the same, after all.”

Myka blinks, but takes a step into the room. “What do you mean, done the same?”

“Bolted?” Helena says. “Because everything was too much and I couldn’t handle it?”

“Oh.” Myka’s mouth falls open, just a little bit. Her eyes unfocus for a moment, going here and there before falling on Helena again. “I… yeah. Okay. Um.” She smiles a little, embarrassed and hopeful at the same time, and her nose does that little wiggle under her glasses. “I… guess we’re even, then?”

“Oh I’m one ahead of you still,” Helena informs her, and takes heart in how Myka’s smile grows. “And I’d like to apologize too, for…” she swallows. “For evading. For not handling the whole matter at all well.”

Myka’s smile is gone again, and her eyes are wide. Again they go blank as she ponders this, then she nods, just the once, accompanied by half of a shrug. “I… okay. I… think I know what you mean, and yeah. Okay.” She notices her fidgeting, lets go of her sleeves, hangs her arms for a moment, then folds them. She looks down for a moment, to where her socked toes are digging into the carpet, then asks, “Can I… can I come over?”

“Please,” Helena says immediately, shifting to the side to make a clear space for Myka to sit down in, ample so Myka can choose how close or far.

Myka walks over gingerly; her whole body is tense still. When she sits down, it’s on the edge of the seat, two feet away, and her fingers find the seam of another throw pillow and start worrying that instead of her sleeve. “I got rejected,” she says after a moment. “And I know it’s only Early Decision and I can apply again but-” the words come out fast, and then stop as if cut off. 

“It still stings?” Helena guesses when Myka doesn’t go on.

“Yeah.” A pained smile flickers across Myka’s face, twitches into a watery grimace. “I just…” she shrugs and falls silent again. 

“You know,” Helena says, low and slow, “Mrs. Lattimer – Jane – has offered that we can stay here. That we get some rest tonight, and talk about things tomorrow. No evasions,” she adds, “I promise. But also, no heavy discussions tonight, not when we’re all,” she casts around for a word and ends on, “wrung out like this.”

Myka’s eyes slide shut and her mouth sags open; she inhales softly, and Helena can see her lips tremble. “Sounds good,” she presses out. “That sounds really, really good.” Then she starts shaking her head, slowly, brow furrowing like a child unwilling to go to bed. “But I have to work tomorrow.”

“No, honey, you don’t,” Mrs. Lattimer announces, coming back into the living room with a stack of plates in her hands. She puts them on the coffee table and continues, “I’ve talked with Jean, and she’s fine with you staying as long as you need tomorrow. She’d like you to give her a call tonight after we’ve eaten, and I’m pretty sure she’ll tell you the same thing: take your time. Digest this, process it, regroup. The store can manage without you for that long.”

All of Myka’s features are trembling now, and she dips her head as if to hide. “I don’t want to… to let them down, though.”

“Myka Ophelia Bering, you listen to me.” Jane’s voice is commanding now, and Myka’s eyes snap up to look at her. “You are allowed to take this time. You are, in fact, required to take this time. This whole mess happened because people weren’t taking time to process things properly.” She shoots Helena a quick glance, causing a spike of burning guilt. “This ends here. When you leave this house tomorrow – whenever that is going to be – you both _will_ have a better idea of what’s going on and what’s going to happen, and if I have to sit down with you and knock your heads together to make that come about, you better believe that is exactly what I’m going to do.”

Helena doesn’t doubt her in the slightest. 

“Not tonight, though,” Jane goes on, in a much gentler voice, and nods down at Helena, “like I’ve already told this one. We’ll have dinner, and after that you call your mom, and after _that_ you two can do whatever the hell you want, as long as it calms you down and gets you some rest. Watch a movie, read a book, sing karaoke for all I care, but no big talk; there’s been enough of that today.”

Helena feels like she’s supposed to salute now; this has clearly been an order, even in that gentle voice. Before she can do anything, though, Pete speaks up from the other doorway. “Ooooh, karaoke!” It’s testament to his mother’s sheer presence that Helena hasn’t noticed him standing there and holding a big pot in his hands, or Claudia behind him with her hands full of cutlery. 

Much to Pete’s disappointment, the evening’s entertainment is a movie; much to his delight, it’s Ghostbusters. The female re-boot – Myka’s pick. Myka stays in her spot as they eat, two feet away from Helena, but over the course of the movie, she gravitates closer, inch by inch, until she’s right next to her. Helena offers her hand, then, upturned and open on her own thigh, with a quick look and smile sideways. Myka gives it five full minutes before taking it, five more before she leans against Helena’s shoulder. Helena, in turn, gives it another five minutes before she lets go of Myka’s hand and puts her arm around Myka’s shoulders instead. 

Increment by increment, Myka relaxes into her. 

That night, up in the same guest bedroom, it’s Helena on her back and Myka curled into her, and a few tears that, Myka assures her, are just an outlet of tension. Helena responds by humming, by drawing feathery designs on the back of Myka’s t-shirt, by not commenting on how long those few tension-outlet tears continue to fall. Later, Myka asks to listen to the Carnival of the Animals again, and although the music comes out of Helena’s phone not Pete’s computer speakers, it serves to soothe both of them. The fully orchestrated version is more sweeping than one single piano could ever manage, much to Helena’s resentment, but she does adore it. Myka demands narration that Helena’s recording doesn’t have, so Helena provides her own, weaving stories about lions threatening chickens and tortoises slowly plodding their way across France. Myka demands fingers on her back ‘like on your piano’, and Helena lets her hand roam across her girlfriend’s t-shirt, measuring out arpeggios and scales, delighting in how Myka squirms when it’s the Wild Horses, trying to find unexpected spots to place the two-tone Cuckoo just to hear Myka giggle.

Lulled by the Swan’s mellower caresses, Myka falls asleep in her arms, and even though Helena is the one holding her, she’s also reassured: by her girlfriend’s solid weight, by the trust she puts in Helena, by the way she accepts Helena’s care. Helena wouldn’t have thought it possible that giving comfort would be comforting in itself, but maybe that’s one of the things she has to learn, like Jane said. 

Eventually, she falls asleep too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next episode going up tomorrow!


	33. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of talking is happening in this chapter, because it's just about d*mn time.

“So,” Jane says the next morning, when breakfast is over and Pete and Claudia have taken off to play Mario Kart on the big TV in the living room. Myka ducks her head and throws a sideways glance at Helena; sees her girlfriend steel herself. “You two,” Jane goes on. “A quick reminder: speak from your own perspective, don’t invalidate the other’s experience, let each other finish. _Listen_ when the other speaks. This isn’t about appointing blame or she said/she said, but about the two of you, _together,_ tackling things to find a solution. Alright?” She gives them each a stern gaze.

Myka nods, and sees Helena do the same a moment later. 

“Well, you’re all set, then.” Jane grabs her coffee mug and gets up. “Should you need me: I’ll be in my office.” 

A moment later, they’re alone in the kitchen. Seated side by side; Myka wonders if that’s not on purpose, Jane’s doing to remind them, physically, that they’re not opponents. When she angles herself the better to look at Helena, their knees knock together and neither of them pulls away. 

“I’m-” Helena begins.

“Where-” Myka begins.

They both stop and grin at each other, awkward in the morning sunlight. 

“You first,” Helena gestures to Myka. 

“I just wanted to ask where you wanted to start,” Myka says with a helpless laugh. 

Helena inhales, pauses, smiles on the exhale. “I wanted to apologize again.”

“But… you already did yesterday.”

“Nevertheless.” Helena casts her eyes down and licks her lower lip. “I am still sorry. I… There are so many things to ponder and research and discuss, and I haven’t done any of them. And this is not… fibbing your way around not having done your homework. This isn’t about me getting into trouble with a teacher. I left you in the lurch, and I am sorry about that.”

Myka can’t deny that this acknowledgement is gratifying, that it makes her feel better. Still, though. “Doctor Calder said this was a lot to take in, and that it is normal to be confused and overwhelmed. So, you know. Don’t be too hard on yourself?”

Helena shoots her one amused glance, and it is so short, the quickest rising and lowering of lashes, but it has Myka’s ears _burning._ “Says the person who’s her own toughest judge,” Helena murmurs. “Please just do me the same favor, will you?”

“I’ll try,” Myka accedes quickly, because there is nothing she wouldn’t promise to a glance like that. “Anyway, though. It wasn’t just you dodging things, it was me too.”

“Well, I’m the one pregnant; I do think it’s my responsibility to be responsible about it.”

And there it is; a hook to one of the things Myka wants to know, needs to know. “Speaking of,” she says quickly, before she can talk herself out of it. “Responsibilities, I mean,” she adds when Helena raises two questioning eyebrows. “I, um. I… I’m not sure how to ask this,” she admits. “Like, I just… I don’t want to assume anything, or push you in any direction. Anything you want is fine with me. I just… want to know, that’s all.”

“Want to know…” Helena says slowly, cadence rising. When Myka doesn’t reply, she adds, “What exactly?”

“Um.” It’s Myka who can’t meet Helena’s eyes anymore now. Her gaze falls on her fingers, clenched around each other in her lap. “I… Like, I’m your girlfriend, yes?”

“Yes?” Helena says, just as slowly. “I… hope?” She sounds a bit alarmed.

“Yeah!” Myka’s eyes fly up, suddenly mortified that she’s sending the wrong signals. “Yeah, no, yes, I mean, yes, I am your girlfriend. No question, not from my side. I’m not- not questioning that. God, I’m sorry.”

Helena takes a deep breath, rolls her shoulders, rolls her eyes. Blinks them a few times, laughs. “You had me going there for a moment.”

“Sorry.” Myka hangs her head again, worries her thumbnail along the inseam of the PJ pants Pete lent her. 

“You… were saying?”

“Oh. Um. Yes. So.” God, why is this so hard? “So, um, some of the websites I’ve looked at talk about – they don’t say ‘father’, they say ‘co-parent’.” There. That word is out in the world now, at least. “And I… I don’t know if… if you want me to be that. Or if you’d rather I… stay off to the side. Still your girlfriend, but… but not more. Like, do you want me to come with to parenting classes? Do you want me to help you take care of the baby when they’re born? Help raise them?”

Helena looks stunned. Her mouth is opened a bit; her eyes are wide. She’s not saying a thing.

“I mean if you don’t,” Myka goes on through the thundering of her heart, “then that’s fine; like you said, you’re the one pregnant; this is your baby and I…” Myka laughs to cover the awkwardness of the next words, “I’m not the father, right? Like, it’s not like I have any… say in the matter.”

Helena is still speechless. 

Myka bites her lips together to stop herself from blurting out more. Let Helena process what she has said before adding anything else, she tells herself. 

The tick of the clock on the wall fills the air. 

“Say something?” Myka ventures.

The tick is punctuated by a gulp. It sounds so dry that Myka winces, that she’s grateful when Helena takes a sip of her tea. “I, uh…” Helena begins, and her voice cracks. She drinks some more, clears her throat. “That is something I have not thought about, to be quite honest.”

“That’s okay!” Myka says quickly. “That’s totally okay! You can think about it now! I mean, _from_ now! Later! At your leisure! I don’t need an answer right now! That’s totally fine!” She sounds manic even to her own ears, and snaps her mouth shut. She doesn’t need an answer now. Not _right_ now anyway.

“No, you… I think you misunderstand,” Helena says, just as quickly, a bit less panicky. “I never even thought…” She shakes her head. “I did envision us going to prenatal classes together, yes, but… that was because we talked about them together. I never made the connection to after.” She laughs and shakes her head again. “After, in my mind, always meant me and the baby, in a house in…” she flaps her hand at the outside world, “somewhere. And you somewhere… somewhere else; around, yes, but not…”

“Well if you don’t want-” Myka begins but Helena holds up her hand. 

“That’s not what I meant.” Helena shakes her head wildly. “What I’m trying to say is that the _thought_ never even crossed my mind. That there even was that option, rather than just me doing this on my own. That you would _want-”_ her voice breaks, flipping upwards like a twig catapulted from a trampoline someone jumped on.

Myka stares at her, re-evaluating, re-thinking what she has come to take for granted in Helena. Remembering Helena at the very beginning, the fear in those dark brown eyes at the thought of asking for something she so desperately wanted. The incredulity at being included, at being wanted. “I’mma hug you now,” she says, and leans forward and does just that. 

Helena clings to her as if Myka’s shoulders are keeping her from drowning. She keeps whispering something into Myka’s neck, and when Myka pulls back ever so slightly, Helena makes a wild noise and follows, but their new angle means Myka can hear what she’s saying, and it’s a fervent, endless refrain of “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Helena.” Myka holds her close, tries with her arms and her torso and her weirdly angled legs that press into Helena’s knees, tries with all of her body to tell Helena that it’s okay, that she’s not going anywhere. “Helena, hey.” In the end, she catches Helena’s head in both her hands, holds Helena where she can see her face. “Hey. You have nothing to be sorry for, okay?”

Helena’s eyes are dry. Wild, yes, but free of tears. But definitely wild. “…never even crossed my mind…” she says. Swallows. Looks away, pulls out of Myka’s hands. “How fucked up is that?”

“Maybe,” Myka offers, trying to catch Helena’s gaze again, “maybe you’re still not really used to having someone in your corner. I mean we’re up against a lifetime of your parents fucking up here.” She puts just enough emphasis on ‘your parents’ that hopefully, Helena will get the message: this isn’t her fault. Her hands sink down, come to rest on Helena’s thigh. 

Helena takes a shaky breath and runs shaky hands through her hair. One of them stays at the nape of her neck, the other starts playing with her teacup as she stares out the window for a long moment. Then she nods. “Yeah, maybe. Probably.” Her smile is shaky, too, but Myka doesn’t care, because her eyes are trained on Myka’s again, and yes, okay, they are shaky, flicking between both eyes fast and unsteady, but they stay. 

Myka turns one of her hands over on Helena’s thigh, and receives the hand that was wound into Helena’s hair a moment earlier. 

Helena laughs again as she presses Myka’s fingers. “I wanted to make you the same promise, you know. Yesterday. Of being in your corner, at your side, not matter what. When you came home – came here, I mean. Jane said no heavy topics, though, so I resolved to do it today. And I still want to, but how can I, when I-” A twitch crosses her face, and she presses her lips together. Her hand tugs loose, gestures at herself in deprecation. 

Myka catches it again, and with her free hand, catches Helena’s face, looks at her until Helena returns her gaze. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have in my corner.”

“But I want to support you, and here I am falling apart again!” Again, Helena pulls her face away. At least her hand stays with Myka, though.

“How about we take turns, then?” Myka barely keeps herself from shrugging. Maybe she should have, just to drive the point home; Helena looks confused when what Myka really wanted to do was jolt her out of her thoughts. “You support me when I need it, I support you when you need it. Taking turns, see? The main thing is us being in that corner together, right?”

Helena visibly pulls herself together – that’s not necessarily what Myka expected, but still an acceptable outcome, so Myka drops her hand again. “You’re right,” Helena says. She sniffs, runs an impatient wrist across her eyes. “You’re right.” Again, her hand rakes through her hair, and then her eyes meet Myka’s. Her shoulders straighten, her chin sets itself into seriousness. It’s only her gaze that shows her insecurity. “Can I… can I think about this?” And then she adds, with a little crease between her eyebrows, “It is a big deal, after all. For you more than for me, I think.”

“How so?”

Helena tilts her head and narrows her eyes, as if she hasn’t heard quite right. “I’ve been thinking of ‘my baby’ the whole time, and I’ve heard you say ‘your baby’. But we’d both be thinking about ‘our baby’ then, wouldn’t we? And that means _I_ go from single responsibility to shared responsibility, but _you’d_ be going into that shared responsibility from no responsibility at all. Right?”

There is very little that Myka can reply to that, succinct as it is. “I… hadn’t thought of it that way,” she admits finally. “I guess you’re right. But the offer still stands,” she adds quickly. 

Helena winces. “Myka, please. Please let’s… let’s both be sure, with that big of a deal, okay? If you haven’t thought of it this way before, please do so before you offer. I… the last thing, Myka, the absolute _last_ thing I want is for you to… to tie yourself to me and then regret it.” 

“I could never-”

“Yes you could!” The force of Helena’s words is stunning. “You want to be the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg – and I don’t want you to give up on that. Do you think that will be possible with a girlfriend and an infant, a toddler, a pre-schooler at home? Please, Myka, all I’m asking is that you think about the whole of it before you say anything.”

Myka’s first instinct is to protest again, but then Jane’s admonition to listen echoes in her thoughts and she snaps her mouth shut. 

Helena has a point. 

“Well then maybe I just-” she begins, but Helena’s hand is raised again. 

“Don’t even _think_ about saying something like ‘maybe I won’t go to Yale’ or ‘maybe I won’t go to law school’ or things like that,” Helena says, intent and dark and uncompromising. 

Myka snaps her mouth shut again. 

“Myka, I don’t want you to give up on your ambition. I couldn’t live with myself. I’d feel guilty, and that’s not a good foundation for being together, I don’t think.”

Myka nods, thoughts already racing. “Okay,” she says, “but.” She holds up a hand of her own. “No, let me finish, okay? This isn’t an either-or. It’s not. It’s not,” she raises one hand, “either I co-parent and give up on my dreams entirely, or,” she raises the other, “I follow my dream and leave you to fend for yourself.” She drops her hands into her lap again, and one of them finds Helena’s on auto-pilot. “Those aren’t the only two options,” she goes on. “For starters, you don’t have to get your undergrad at Yale to go to Yale Law. They take in people from other colleges too. I don’t know if it’d lessen my chances, but I can look that up, okay? And that’d be a third option, right there. I mean I need to look things up now anyway, after yesterday. Regroup, like Jane said. We can… we can do that together. Right?”

Helena is quiet for a moment, then she starts nodding. And then a smile spreads across her face. It has to fight its way from the corners of her eyes to the corners of her mouth, but it’s there. “As a team,” she says.

Myka takes a big breath and shakes out her shoulders. “As a team.” She smiles back at Helena. “Yeah.” 

“So… so what’s next?”

“College-wise,” Myka begins, eyes staring at thin air as she goes through options in her mind, “I need to review the places that I had on my regular-decision list. See which one of them fits best, now.” She presses her lips together and clears her throat. “Pregnancy-wise, I… um, I guess there are a few, uh… more things to think about. We could… go through them now?” It seems like a good time for it, doesn’t it?

Helena grins. “Next you’ll tell me you have a list.”

Myka flushes, red-hot and caught. 

Helena’s eyes widen almost comically. “That was a joke! Y-you do, don’t you. You have a list.”

Myka makes herself small. “I do. At home.” 

Helena laughs out loud. “God, I love you.”

It’s as if someone has rung a gong next to Myka’s head. It’s such a perfect moment; Helena sitting next to her swamped in a shirt and sports shorts large enough to fit Pete, face pale and drawn from everything that went down yesterday but real, so real, and the sun is on her and she’s laughing and _she loves Myka._

Myka stares. Blinks. Can’t think of anything else. “You love me,” she whispers. 

“I do.” Helena is still smiling. 

“No, I mean,” Myka tries again. She gestures, just the flop of a hand. “You love me.” It’s one thing to hear ‘I love you’ and reply ‘I love you too’ in return, a way to sign off on phone calls or texts, call and response – it’s another thing entirely to hear ‘I love you’ and realize _what it means._

Helena’s head is tilted now, and her laughter hasn’t faded away entirely, but is beginning to turn into confusion. 

“Here,” Myka says, trying to explain. “Listen to me, okay? When I say it, don’t reply, just listen. Okay?”

Bafflement has fully taken over Helena’s features now. “Okay,” she says, more of a question than a confirmation. 

Myka takes both her hands. “Helena, I love you.” Helena’s mouth opens, and Myka places her finger on it. “Listen. Just… just listen.” Helena nods, lips closing behind Myka’s finger. Myka takes a deep breath, puts her whole entire heart into the words. “I love you.”

And this time, the words impact. Myka can see it. Helena’s eyes grow wide, and her lips part again and tremble under Myka’s hand. 

Myka nods. “I love you,” she says again, for good measure. Joy bubbles up in her, tugs her face into a smile. Helena’s eyes flutter shut, but not in the way people do when they evade something, but in the way they do when the wonder of something just can’t be contained any other way. “I love you,” Myka whispers, and her hand moves from covering Helena’s mouth to holding her jaw, to pulling her close and pressing the most reverent of kisses onto her lips. 

“Oh,” Helena says tonelessly. She sways, and her hand comes up to grip Myka’s wrist and hold on tight. 

Myka pulls her forward until their foreheads touch, and feels Helena lean into her. “That’s what I meant, yeah,” she murmurs. 

“That is one hell of a drug,” Helena replies with a small laugh. “Do you want to have another shot?”

Myka laughs too. “Hit me,” she says, because after yesterday, she can use it.

“I love you.” 

Myka laughs, happy, _joyful._ Filled to the brim by three little words.

“I love you,” they come again, and Myka can hear Helena’s beaming smile even with her eyes closed.

“God, I love you too,” she sighs, pulling Helena into another hug. 

Maybe they both need this, after yesterday.

Myka vows to herself to never, _ever,_ say ‘I love you’ again and not mean it like this. And then she realizes that Helena won’t know that, so she tells her. “I’ll always mean it like this, when I tell you. Okay? Always.”

Against her shoulder, Helena nods. “Me too,” she sighs. Then she shifts, and makes an irritated sound in the back of her throat. And then she pulls away entirely. “Ugh. No, I… _ow.”_ She sits up straight, stretching her back. “Ow,” she repeats. 

“What’s wrong?”

Helena raises her eyebrow as she rubs the small of her back, then her belly. “Growing pains?”

“Oh.” Myka flushes. “Right. Sorry. Are they bad?”

Helena frowns as she listens into herself, then shakes her head, focusing on Myka again. “No,” she sighs. “A bit like period pain, a bit unlike it? Don’t you remember growing pains?”

Myka does. Of course she does. “Yeah, I do. Ugh – I’m sorry. Anything I can do?” She’s read a few things here and there how a partner can help. Massages, things like that. It makes her think back to when she herself basically begged Helena to massage her lower back last time she was on her period, and she blushes. Thank goodness her period wasn’t quite as bad (or gassy) this time.

Helena waits a moment longer, then shakes her head again. “Seems to have stopped,” she says. “So, that list of y- No, sorry, hang on.” She gets up off her chair and without any announcement or forewarning whatsoever bends over to touch her toes. Groans as the stretch reaches the muscles of her lower back – or so Myka, whose thoughts aren’t too clear at the moment because Helena’s shirt has slid almost completely off her body to present Myka with an eternity of naked back, concludes.

“That’s better,” Helena says breezily, righting herself again. The shirt is clinging to her left boob, exposing her belly, and she absentmindedly tugs it down.

Was there… was there a bit of swell?

“I’ll- Myka, are you alright?”

Myka blinks. “Huh?” 

Helena giggles. Honest-to-god giggles, leans down, presses a kiss on Myka’s forehead. “Sorry,” she says, sounding not sorry in the slightest, and adds, “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Myka says, still mired in eternities of skin, and watches her go. 

Helena is so beautiful. 

When Helena returns, she’s holding a notepad and pencil. “Begged those off Jane,” she reveals. “Just in case. Not that I doubt your ability to recall your list,” she adds, “just so we can jot things down if necessary, you understand.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Good call.” Myka shakes herself out of her thoughts and into the task at hand.

Helena sits down, wiggles until she’s comfortable, puts notepad and pencil on the table, reaches towards Myka and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Let’s get to it, then.”

For a moment, Myka can only stare at her girlfriend. Then she laughs. “You… are something else.”

Helena’s only reply is to raise her eyebrows and pick up the pencil, poised to write. 

“Okay,” Myka nods, biting back another laugh. Focus. List. Things to talk about. “Okay. Um. Here’s what I got. Immediate things are your driver’s license and a car, your OB visits, figuring out how much money you’ll need.” She watches Helena note those down, sees her add ‘place to live’ a good bit further down the page and circle it, and circle ‘money’ too, connecting the two with a firmly swooped double-pointed arrow. “Yeah, that,” Myka nods. “Also visa and health insurance.”

Helena hums as she adds them to the list, right on top of ‘place to live’. “I’m grouping for urgency,” she explains. “I don’t see these,” she taps the eraser end of the pencil on the second list, “as quite as immediate; for now, I am a student, my visa is valid, so is my health insurance, and I’m staying with the Frederics. Those things need dealing with but not _right_ now, they can wait a few days or weeks.”

“Yep, I thought so too.” They share a smile. Then Myka adds, “Prenatal classes and infant first aid. Health in general, like, exercising, stretching, that kind of thing.”

“Yes, so about those,” Helena says, pencil hovering. “Tracy says a lot of people take infant first aid, not just parents-to-be. So we shouldn’t stand out too much there, but prenatal classes are a different matter, aren’t they.”

“Yeah, really no other reason to take them than being pregnant,” Myka agrees. 

“So my thought was to take the first aid class first, and the prenatal class later.”

Myka nods. “I read most people take them at the beginning of the third trimester.” Then she watches Helena add ‘first aid’ to the top list and ‘prenatal class’ and ‘exercise’ to a new, third list in the middle. “Choosing a hospital,” Myka says next, biting her lip when she’s done.

Helena doesn’t bat an eye as she adds it to the latest list. “And a doula, potentially,” she says very matter-of-factly. “I’ve been meaning to ask Shaw if I can talk with her aunt. A doula can probably also tell me what kind of exercises would be beneficial.”

Myka swallows. There is another person Doctor Calder suggested. She waits a moment for Helena to bring it up, but when she doesn’t, Myka knows it’s on her. “How about a therapist?”

Helena scowls, but adds it. “Let me think about that one, okay?”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Next up: telling people,” Helena sighs and looks up from the list. “When, who to, how, what.” Then she freezes. “Oh, _bollocks.”_

“What? What is it?”

Helena’s mouth is set in a very thin line. There’s a debate going on, Myka can see it. Then Helena reaches for her phone, which has been lying face-down at one end of the kitchen table. Flips it over, unlocks it, opens something, holds it out to Myka. “I got this yesterday.”

Myka stares at Walter Sykes’ message and picture. She feels a weird calm wash over her, and sets down the phone very carefully. “Okay.” She takes a breath, marveling at how easy it comes. “Have you reacted in any way yet?”

Helena shakes her head. Her expression is extremely apprehensive. “I wanted to talk with you first,” she explains. “He’s not just threatening me, after all. Oh, Pete saw this too, by the way; he was there when I got the message.”

“Has _he_ done anything?”

“I… don’t know? Myka, are you alright? You… are looking… just a little bit frightening.”

Frightening? Myka shoots Helena a questioning glance, which is countered by a pointed look of Helena’s at Myka’s lap. 

Her hands are balled around the fabric of her borrowed pants tightly enough to make the fabric creak. 

“I’m half expecting you to float up in the air like Adam in Good Omens, with your eyes afire and your hair flashing around you,” Helena says.

“Oh.” It takes a very conscious effort to unclench her hands. And now that her mind is tuned to this, Myka realizes her shoulders are square and tight and her face is extremely set. “Oh.” A little bit more effort, and her shoulders sag and her features soften, as best as she can anyway.

Helena gives her a smirk. “That looked… interestingly dangerous,” she says. 

Myka laughs in embarrassment and runs her hands down her thighs to dry her palms. “Sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be,” Helena hums, pensively sucking at her lip. “Like I said: interesting.” The look she gives Myka then is pure smolder, and Myka overbalances with her hands rubbing her knees, and almost falls off her chair. 

“So, uh,” she tries to save things, tries to disregard how her voice is suddenly much higher than usual. “What are we going to do about Walter, then?”

Helena growls at the back of her throat, and whoa. Yeah, okay, so ‘dangerous’ can equal ‘interesting’, point taken. “Sod ‘im,” Helena says darkly. “I’m of half a mind to go there and nut him, wheelchair or not.”

“He won’t be alone,” Myka warns. “He never is, for something like that. Let’s look at our options: we can – or you can, I guess – go there and see what he wants, but I’m not feeling good about that at all. We can ignore him, call his bluff. I mean what’s he gonna do, send this picture to people? We’re just hugging. Easily enough explained as just being friends. Or we could-”

“Tell people,” Helena finishes the sentence. “About the two of us. Which is why I thought of him when I spoke of telling people.” 

She looks ill at the thought, and Myka takes her hands. “We don’t have to.”

Helena is staring straight ahead of herself, pale and hunched and frowning. “I know,” she says after a while. “However.”

“No, Helena, really, we don’t. Please, don’t- don’t push yourself too far, okay?”

Helena’s eyes rise to meet Myka’s. The frown is still there, a deep furrow between her brows, but it’s one of focus more than anything else. Helena’s eyes roam Myka’s face, then go off into the distance once more. “This isn’t then,” she says, as if to herself. Her eyes come back again, and her shoulders are a bit straighter than before. “This isn’t then, you aren’t her, and I have friends now.” She takes a deep breath and sets her chin. “To hell with him,” she says flatly. “Let’s do it. Let’s tell people we’re together.” 

“Are you sure?”

Helena deflates a little. “Not one hundred percent, no.” She gives Myka a slightly queasy smile. “But sometimes offense is the best defense, isn’t it?” 

Myka thinks about saber fencing, and gives that one a nod. “Right,” she says. “Plus, we have until five this afternoon to think twice about it, or three times, or however often it takes.”

“True.”

“So… back to telling people the, um, other thing?”

Helena rolls her shoulders, rolls her eyes, and shakes her head. “I suppose,” she says with a wry smile. “I promised Jane yesterday I would tell Mrs. Frederic when I’m eighteen.” She even notes it down in her precise hand: ‘Mrs. F, Jan 4’.

“That’s a start. And Doctor Calder said people will probably start noticing sometime in January, right?”

Helena nods. “I _could_ wait until I’m visibly, undeniably pregnant,” she says, “or go on the offense there too.” She jots down ‘school?’ underneath the entry for Mrs. F. “I do want to tell Leena, Steve, Claudia and Josh before I tell people in school. But I can’t tell Leena before I tell Mrs. Frederic, or I’d be asking her to lie to her aunt, and I won’t do that.” 

“Oh jeez, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Yeah, you’re right.” Myka thinks for a moment. “Also on your birthday, maybe? We could all get together in the afternoon and you could tell people then? One fell swoop kind of thing? Or would that be too much?”

Helena grimaces slightly. “Probably easiest,” she says. “On the list it goes, then.” When Helena’s head comes up again, it’s tilted in question. “Once people know, they’ll wonder about the father, and, if they also know about us, they’ll wonder about what you think of all that.”

Myka inhales and holds it for a moment. “Yeah,” she says then. “I’m fine telling them I don’t care. People in school, I mean. The gang… how much do you want to tell them?”

“What I told your parents and Tracy, or close enough,” Helena says. “It does cover the pertinent facts, and I think it’s good if the people-” she stops, and a peculiar look creeps over her face. It grows into a smile after a moment. “The people close to me,” she says quietly, and it sounds full of awe, like she’s looking at the most immense Christmas gift she’s ever gotten. “If they are all on the same page.”

Myka can feel her heart grow soft for this girl all over again. There’s something niggling at the back of her mind, though, regarding the telling of things to people. “Question?” she asks hesitantly. 

Helena looks up at her. “Yes?”

Myka keeps her gaze steady, determined not to look away, no matter how uncomfortable this makes her. “Um. I… I’m not sure how you’ll like me bringing this up, but… how about telling the, um. The father? I mean the guy who… you know.” Heat is rising in her cheeks as she talks, until she snaps her mouth shut because it’s burning so brightly.

“Oh.” Surprise widens Helena’s eyes; then they grow pensive. “I don’t have any way of contacting him. He… he was a regular at a record store I used to go to too, and I know his first name. That’s all I have. But…” She shakes her head quickly. “Myka, he doesn’t factor in this. I don’t want him to. If he managed to stay out of my parents’ clutches – and I’m sure they’d have find a way to tell me if they’d gotten their hands on him – then I don’t want to drag him into this either. I don’t need him, he didn’t mean anything to me, I don’t see why he should be part of this.”

“Okay.” Myka strikes him off her mental list. 

“Easy as that?” Helena smiles at her questioningly.

Myka shrugs. “It’s your decision, so yeah?”

Helena’s smile grows. Then it fades again. “My parents themselves will be another matter,” she says with a sigh, and props her forehead into her hand. “I… They won’t be happy. Legally they won’t have any say in the matter, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to persuade me, especially not when they learn that abortion is legal in Colorado with no… how did Doctor Calder put it?”

“Gestational limit.” Myka’s heart is heavy, looking at how Helena scowls at the thought of her parents. “Let them try,” she says softly. “You’ve got all of us to back you up. If they call you and it gets too much, just hang up on them and call me instead. If they call you while you’re at my place, just hand your phone to my mom; she really wants to give them a piece of her mind. And if they actually show up here – maybe we should agree on a panic signal that you just send to the group chat and we all swoop in to stand with you, Avengers Assemble style.”

Helena gets that soft look again. “Perhaps the police car light,” she suggests. 

Whoa, okay, so Helena is taking this as a serious proposal, something that would be an actual reaction to something that might actually happen. The thought is disconcerting. “You really think they would come here?” 

Helena looks surprised at Myka’s question. “Oh absolutely. At least my mother, potentially both of them. Last ditch effort and so on.”

Myka has to let that settle for a moment. “Holy shit. Man, they suck.”

“Quite.”

“Still, though, if they do try anything, just reach out, okay? We will back you up.”

“That is good to know.” Helena does look… fortified. She straightens her shoulders, and that’s also something Myka is noticing now that she hasn’t before: that Helena’s shoulders aren’t actually all that narrow, that they just always seemed that way from how she held herself, how she made herself smaller, less noticeable. Myka doesn’t want to think too long about the before; it tugs at her heartstrings too much. She’d rather think about the now: she likes these shoulders. 

“Is there anything else that should get on these lists?” Helena asks, tapping her pencil to the notepad.

“Prenatal testing,” Myka says after a moment of checking her memories. “Do you want any, which ones, risks and benefits, that kind of thing.”

“Ah, yes.” The two words go on the bottom of the top list. 

“Um, baby shower? Or, baby shopping at least? And-” Myka waves her hand towards Helena’s midriff. “Like, maternity clothes?”

Helena’s pen hovers, then, with a sigh, she adds ‘shopping’ underneath ‘prenatal testing’. “I’ve started having troubles with some of my trousers,” she admits in a quietly frustrated voice. “The gray ones among them.”

“I’m sorry.” They’re Helena’s favorite, Myka knows. They look good on her; charcoal grey, fitted, elegant. She wore them on Thanksgiving. “I think I read about this thing somewhere that allows you to wear your favorite pants a bit longer? Like, it kinda sits over their top so that people don’t see that the button’s popped?”

Helena looks at her in wonderment. “That,” she says, pointing the eraser end of the pencil at Myka, “is something I need to know more about _today.”_

Myka grins. “Another Sunday evening shopping trip?”

 _“Today,_ Myka.”

Myka laughs. “I think that can be arranged.” 

“It bloody better.” Helena taps the pencil on the paper decisively, impatiently even. Then her motions stop. “Oh.”

“What?”

“Names. I-I…” Helena stutters to a stop. She looks up at Myka, and her eyes are a little wild again. “We could start thinking about names. Something to call the baby already now, when we speak of them, and… and names for… for later. When they’re…” she gulps down a breath and finishes, “when they’re there.”

“Oh,” is all Myka can say, too. There was a ‘we’ in there. 

There was a ‘we’ in there.

Holy sh- 

She probably shouldn’t say ‘shit’ anymore. 

But still, though. 

She’s never named anything. Not her saber, not her car. Well, her stuffed toys, yes, but it’s been a while since she’s gotten a new one, so… 

It’s a big deal, naming something.

Naming some _one._

“Myka?”

“Hm?”

“Are you… alright?”

“Hm?” 

Helena is leaning close, eyes wide open and very concerned. 

Myka blinks. Her eyes are dry; she’s probably been staring. “I’m sorry, what?”

Helena smiles and pulls back a little. “You blanked out for a moment there. Are you alright?” she repeats.

“I… yeah. Yeah! I just… Names. I mean.” Myka blinks again, and gives a little laugh – yeah, no, she’s alright. Perfectly fine. A-okay. 

“Perhaps we should postpone this one,” Helena says. “Maybe something will come up naturally, for now I mean. And… Myka, if… if they’re a girl-” and there Helena stops. Stares and blinks, like Myka just did. “But we won’t know that,” she says in a whisper, “not for sure, not for a while anyway. Right? I mean-” Her eyes start moving again, flitting here and there. “I wouldn’t assume-”

“How about a gender-neutral name?” Myka suggests. 

Helena swallows. “I just…” 

She looks so conflicted that Myka reaches out, takes her pen-free hand in hers. “You have a name for a girl?”

Helena nods. “Christina,” she says. “It just… was there, in my mind. If it’s a girl, I want to name her Christina, like Aunt Tee, but-” she shakes her head, slowly, then quicker and quicker. “But she didn’t even like the name,” she says, full-on anguished now. 

“Hey,” Myka says, squeezing Helena’s hand. “Hey, flygirl. Hey.” Helena looks over at her at the nickname, and relaxes a bit. “Nothing that needs to be decided now, right? A, we’re months away from having to actually put down a name on a birth certificate, and b, we can talk this over between now and then. You could… you could ask Charlie what they think. They were given a gendered name and changed it, right? They might have some input. And they knew your aunt, and can tell you if she’d have liked it?”

“Oh…” Helena’s eyes widen. “You’re right.” She nods. “You’re right,” she repeats, and then jots down ‘names’ on her middle list, and ‘talk to Charlie’ next to it, and circles the latter twice. “Charlie calls them ‘demon spawn, the next generation’, by the way,” she adds with a reminiscent smile. 

“W- what?” Myka laughs in surprise.

“Well, I – the Hellbug – obviously am the original demon spawn,” Helena explains, “and so, you know.” She pats her belly. “Next generation.”

Myka giggles. “You’re both dorks,” she says. 

“Well, then it probably runs in the family.” Helena gives her a smirk. “Not that I have anything against dorks, you understand. I’m in love with one, in fact.” 

Myka beams and lets this declaration wash over her just like she did the earlier one. Then she says, “Me too.” 

“Oh?” Helena’s eyebrows arch upwards elegantly. “Do tell.”

“She’s a flygirl nerf herder,” Myka says conspiratorially, “and I’ve never loved anyone more in my life.”

“Goodness,” Helena says, but it’s breathless and her smile is radiant.

For a long moment, they just stare at each other, bathing in their love. 

Then Myka clears her throat. “Um, list? Talking? I’m a bit concerned that Jane’s really gonna knock our heads together unless we tell her we’ve at least touched on everything.”

Helena inhales open-mouthed, then nods. “You’re right. She can be intimidating.” Her eyes fly across the notepad in front of her. “It does look quite comprehensive,” she says, eyebrows creased in concentration. 

“There’s… one more thing,” Myka says, “but it’s not… Well. I don’t know how important it is,” she amends. “Some of the pages I’ve read talked about… like, journaling. Recording your journey, you know? Taking pictures, writing down your weight and stuff, but also your thoughts?”

“Oh!” Helena smiles. “That sounds… it does sound good. When we go out to get that trouser thing you spoke of, can we stop by a place that sells journals and suchlike?”

“Oh! You mean a paper one, not an app!” Now there’s a surprise – although, on second thought, maybe not. Helena does like to write by hand, or sketch or doodle. “Yeah, sure,” Myka goes on, thoughts already turning, “I just… I’m not sure which place to go, but yeah. We’ll figure it out.” Her mom probably knows. Or Jane.

“I would like something tangible, yes,” Helena says. 

And it does make sense. Helena takes extensive notes in class; her handwriting is precise and clear – exactly like that of someone who likes to write by hand. 

Maybe Myka should start one too?

“Alright,” Helena says, sitting up straighter, “what do we- no, hang on.” She gets up and rolls her eyes. “Bathroom break. Don’t go anywhere.” 

Myka watches her go – shoulders straight and head held high, raven hair flowing freely down her back. 

Helena is beautiful. Beautiful and brilliant and brave. It isn’t easy to imagine someone like her loving someone like Myka Bering, and yet somehow she does. Eight billion people in the world, and here they are, two people from two continents, brought together by sheer chance, and now they’re in love – and looking at having a baby together. 

Well. 

Helena hasn’t really answered that question yet. But she did say ‘we’ when it came to names. She did. That has to mean something. Right? Still, she might change her mind when she thinks about it some more. She’s free to do that. It’s her baby, after all, her pregnancy, her decision. 

It’s a bit… nerve-wracking. Like, unless and until Myka knows how Helena thinks about this, she… how can she get invested, as long as she doesn’t know? And holding back somehow feels like she’s not supporting Helena as best as she could, so-

“You stayed!” Helena is back, and she bounds over and gives Myka a small kiss on the cheek. 

Myka grins as she looks up at her girlfriend, pushing her thoughts aside. “Where would I possibly go when I know you’re coming back here?”

“Flatterer,” Helena says, but her flattery does win Myka another kiss, so that’s alright. “Do you want to go over the list, see if there are things we can check off today? Or are you done talking for now?”

“No, let’s,” Myka says, pulling the list over and running her eyes down it. “I mean technically we can check off driver’s ed, right? You’re doing that, so that’s taken care of even if you don’t have your license yet.”

Helena nods as she sits down in her chair again. “And it doesn’t make sense for me to go through that any faster and get my license before I turn eighteen; too much trouble.”

“Well then.” Myka takes the pencil and hovers for a moment, looking at Helena and waiting for the go-ahead. Helena gives her a decisive nod, and Myka makes a checkmark. “There we go. And you have your next appointment with Doctor Calder already down, too, right?” When Helena nods again, Myka puts a checkmark there too. “I can ask if we can go shopping today, or if my parents want me to come back to work in the store. Then we can check- well, half-check, this one off, too,” she says, tapping the tip of the pen on the next item. “I mean I don’t think we can do maternity shopping in one afternoon. I don’t even really have an idea what and how much of it you’d need.”

“Or how large I’ll get,” Helena agrees, “or if I’ll need new shoes and whatnot. That trouser thing, though; I really want to look for that.” She is silent for a moment, then adds, “And you… you said something about a baby shower. But… I always thought that was a family affair.”

Myka gives her a baffled grin. “You… you don’t honestly believe my mom’s not gonna throw you one, right?”

“I… honestly did not think she would, no,” Helena says. She looks conflicted. “Myka, I… I don’t need to be given baby things. You were there when I told you, your mother was there – I have money enough to buy what I’ll need.”

Myka shakes her head wildly. “But that’s not what it’s about. She says it’s about people showing up, showing their support for you. That’s why she wants you to have that.” 

“…oh.” Myka can see Helena swallow a few times as she ponders this. It seems Helena still isn’t used to… to having friends and family. 

And that brings Myka to one more thing that she wants to bring up, subsumed under ‘visa’. It seems as good a time as any to at least broach the subject. “Um,” she begins, trying to find a way to do so gently enough to not make Helena bolt again. “Um, I, uh… I’ve looked a bit into visa requirements, by the way. And, um.”

Helena is looking at her now, and Myka takes a deep breath. Maybe she should have waited until Helena has made her decision regarding how involved she wants Myka to be – or maybe Helena needs to know this beforehand, actually. 

Nothing for it; Helena’s waiting for Myka to go on. “So, um…” Myka says, and licks her lips. “So there are a few ways to legally stay in the US once your student visa runs out. You can find a job, or invest money, or you can be…” she swallows. Up and at ‘em, she tells herself. “Sponsored by a family member. But the thing is, your baby wouldn’t count.”

Helena blinks. “Oh.”

“Yeah. A lot of people think so, but it doesn’t. A child can petition for their parents when the child is 21 or older, not before. But,” she adds quickly, because Helena looks like the rug is being pulled out under her, “there’s another way. And it might sound… well. Just… just see it as a possible solution, okay? Think about it rationally, not emotionally.”

“Okay?”

“You, um… well, a US citizen can petition for their… um, their spouse.” 

Helena simply stares at her, and Myka isn’t sure if her words were maybe not clear enough. She can feel the blush start in her neck, and knows it’s going to be a fierce one.

“Like, we could get-”

“Married, yes, I understand, but Myka-” Helena snaps her mouth shut so hard her teeth click. She sucks in a shuddering breath. “Rationally, not emotionally,” she mutters, shaking her head and running her hand through her hair again with a breezy exhalation of, “Lord.”

“You don’t have to decide that right now, obviously,” Myka says, heart beating in her cheeks. “Like I said, it’s a possible solution.” And not a proposal, Myka doesn’t add. It’s not. Even though… well, even though it totally is, but… well, that’s another matter; maybe one for her journal. Like, it’s not like she’s not in it for the long haul, right? She is. She _can_ see herself spending the rest of her life with Helena; this wouldn’t just be for… expediency. “We’d have to wait until I turn eighteen,” she adds. “And we can probably expect to get flagged for marriage fraud, with us being this young and me obviously not being the father of your child,” she also adds, because that’s an important aspect. “Still, though. Something to think about. Just… I wanted to put it out there, so that you’ll have time to think about it. You know?”

“I… yes, I understand. Something to think about.” Helena picks up her tea mug – the tea has to be stone cold by now – and takes a sip. “I… will do that. Think about it.” Her eyelids flutter. “In the, ah, spirit of that,” she says carefully, “I do have a question concerning the… circumstances.”

Myka gulps, wishing for some tea, of whichever temperature, of her own. “Yeah?”

“This… You… you do _mean_ this, right? It’s not… it wouldn’t… be fraud. Right?”

Busted. Myka takes a slow, careful breath; her cheeks are aflame – her whole upper body seems to be. “Correct,” she says finally. Exhales. “Still, though,” she adds quickly, “if you… if you don’t want this kind of involvement from me-”

“Oh will you stop that!” Helena exclaims, setting down her cup with a clank and taking Myka’s hands. “Myka, I… You…” Her lips shape a few unsaid words. “I understand what you’re trying to do, honestly I do, but you have to… Myka, this is about what _you_ want, too. I can’t go making these decisions on my own; they concern you too, _massively._ I can’t… you can’t ask me to single-handedly decide to change your life!” She looks off to the side for a moment, collecting herself, then meets Myka’s eyes again. “Myka, what do _you_ want?”

“I just…” Myka’s thoughts race. “I’m just offering,” she says helplessly. “If you… if you want… that, me, then you can… just say yes; and if you don’t… well, I can’t change that, can I?” She feels her eyes burn and bites down on the feeling; she does not want to cry over this. “Look,” she goes on, “I wouldn’t be offering this – being a co-parent, marrying you – if my heart wasn’t in it, alright? But I can’t make your heart be in it. If you don’t want to, then that’s just how it is.”

Helena’s hands have clenched around hers almost painfully tightly while she was talking, and the way her eyes are filling up doesn’t help Myka’s stay dry, not one bit. 

“And you don’t have to say anything right now,” Myka goes on. “Because you’re right, this is massive, this is life-changing, for both of us. But it’s what I’ve been thinking about, you know? Like, am I ready for this? And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t. And how could I? I’ve never done this before and yeah, it’s a bit scary, with the size of it and all. But, you know, _college_ is pretty damn life-changing too, and I’ve never done that before either, so maybe… maybe you just gotta jump at some point. And I know,” she holds up her hand, “I know what you’re thinking – this is Myka Bering, who has color-coded, down-to-the-minute plans for _everything,_ talking about a leap of faith, but… maybe this is my moment to be bold.”

Helena’s mouth drops open at that, and maybe Myka has gone too far, invoking Helena’s aunt like that, but then Helena’s mouth is on hers, fierce, feverish, burning just as brightly as Myka’s blush. 

Myka doesn’t ask if this is a yes, even though the question sears the tip of her tongue more than Helena’s kiss does. She’s told Helena that she can take her time thinking about this, and she won’t go back on that just because of one kiss. She won’t. 

“Give me a bit,” Helena says, all by herself, when they break apart and lean forehead to forehead. “I… do want to… I do, but Myka, I also want to think, and be certain, and…”

“I know,” Myka says, peppering kisses on the corner of Helena’s mouth. “I know. Rationally, not emotionally, like I said. Just… just talk to me when you need to, okay? Promise me that. Please. Don’t… don’t assume I want or don’t want this or that. Don’t talk yourself into thinking I don’t actually want you, or want this, or that I’m not being genuine or whatever. If you find yourself thinking like that, talk to me. Okay?”

“Would you promise me something in return?”

Myka does a double take. “W- yeah?”

Helena pulls back – her eyes are intent, and very, very solemn. “That you’ll talk to me too. When things get overwhelming. When you have too many questions with too few answers, or when you just need… well, a shoulder to lean on. I’m in your corner, too. And I know I haven’t… haven’t really proven it, I know I’ve just taken and taken and taken, but Myka, you can lean on me, too.” She catches Myka’s face in her hand. “I… know it doesn’t really come natural, but then what you’re asking me to promise you doesn’t, either, so… so maybe we both have a bit of learning to do. Does that… does that sound fair?”

It does. Rationally, not emotionally speaking, it does. It really does. Myka can’t argue with it. “Okay,” she says, after a little bit of agonizing. “Yeah, okay. Fair.” She exhales through slightly pursed lips. “I promise.”

“So do I,” Helena replies. Then she leans forward, and this time her kiss isn’t fierce; it’s tender, and tentative, and burns not a single degree less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be up on the 25th! Christmas is coming!


	34. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie! Christmas! But first: an absolute _entrance._
> 
> The next chapter will go up on Dec 31st!

“Are you ready?” Myka asks Helena on Monday morning. 

Helena hasn’t felt this nauseous since the beginning of the school year, but she nods nevertheless. They’re pulled to the curb a few blocks away from school; Myka has picked Helena up this morning, but that’s not the only way in which they’ve prepared for their confrontation with Walter. Helena has spent an hour pimping and priming herself and is dressed in her sharpest clothes; her charcoal grays hug her legs comfortingly, the belly band that makes them fit her again hidden under a loose-fitting shirt and a thigh-length waistcoat-and-scarf combo that Claudia calls her ‘swashbuckler outfit’. 

She looks good, even if she says so herself. And that is comfort, that is reassurance, that is _power,_ right up her spine.

Still.

“Pete says everyone’s in place at the parking lot, just waiting for us to get there. Hey,” Myka adds, turning in her seat to fully face Helena. She holds out her hands and Helena takes them, if only to break the stranglehold her fingers have on each other. “Second thoughts?”

“Third, fourth, fifth,” Helena says with a strained smile. It drops a second later, and she bites her lip. “Walter’s a bully,” she goes on, “and backing down would only encourage him. This _is_ the best way forward, I just…” she inhales, holds the breath for a second, exhales again. 

“Need to not chicken out at the last second?” Myka suggests.

Helena draws herself up. “Flygirl nerf herders are not chickens.”

“That’s the spirit,” Myka grins at her. Her expression doesn’t stay on her face long, either, though. “Listen, I’m… I’m nervous too. Not gonna lie. But we both know this is the way to go. We just gotta do it. Bite the bullet, suck it up, et cetera.” She nods down to Helena’s legs. “Put on your big girl pants,” she adds with another grin. Then she grows serious again and gives Helena’s hands a double squeeze. “Remember: I’m at your side all the way,” she says. 

“And I at yours,” Helena replies. 

“Then let’s go.”

Helena relinquishes Myka’s hands only to pull her face close, lean in, inhale, kiss her cheek. “For luck,” she murmurs. 

“Nerf herder,” Myka breathes, then kisses the bridge of Helena’s nose. “Let’s go.”

Myka drives right to the front of the parking lot. There’s a small cluster of people there, holding open a parking spot two rows away from the entrance – not really permissible, of course, but also part of the preparations. Myka turns into the row, and the cluster opens up like a flower to allow her to pull into the spot. People pat the bonnet and roof encouragingly as the car comes to a halt. Some, Helena recognizes – Pete is there of course, Leena, Steve, Josh, Claudia with her camera out, Tracy, Shaw and the rest of the WAGs and the football team. Some are faces that she’s seen around before; some might or might not even be Lincoln High students for all she knows. 

Myka puts the car in park and turns off the ignition. “Up and at ‘em,” she mutters, an encouragement to the both of them. 

She gets out first, and people cheer. She rounds the car and holds the door for Helena, and people cheer. Helena gets out, and people cheer.

The crowd is growing, and that’s also part of the plan. 

Helena just wouldn’t have thought there’d be _this_ many people. 

Myka kisses her hand, and the crowd cheers and whistles and claps. 

Helena kisses Myka’s cheek, and the applause gets louder. 

“Who are all these people?” Helena asks, leaned into Myka still. 

“Drama club’s here,” Steve, behind Myka’s shoulder, replies, and two dozen people cheer. 

“GSA!” Josh calls out, and more than fifty people respond with calls and whistles. 

“Lincoln High Wrestling Scorpions: represeeeeent!” Pete shouts, and there’s a chorus of mostly male voices in reply.

“Lincoln High Socceroos!” Shaw calls, not to be left out, and this chorus is mostly female. 

“Lincoln High Cheerleaders!” That’s Tracy, and again a good fifty people, cheering as only cheerleaders can.

“Fencers en garde,” someone completely unknown to Helena calls out, and there’s a shout-and-step affair like a mini Haka, or the Dora Milaje pulling into formation. 

“Ready, set, …” someone begins, and Leena and about twenty other people chime in, “bake!”

With every single call and response, Helena’s heart swells. Myka’s eyes shine, and there are two spots of color high on her cheeks, and her smile is threatening to jump off her face and into the sky and rival the sun. She looks at Helena, head tilted and lips slightly parted, beaming at what they pulled off, and if Helena knows anything, it’s that you have to play to the crowd in moments like these.

So Helena leans forward and kisses that smile, and the mob explodes. 

Sometimes offense _is_ the best defense. 

The look on Walter’s face as they strut past him and his friends, riding on endorphins and cordoned off by an honor guard that’s more of an impromptu parade than anything else, is thunderous with fury, and marvelously impotent. There are a few teachers present by now, Jane Lattimer at the forefront, and _all_ of them are grinning. 

Mrs. Frederic is notably absent; plausible deniability, as she herself has explained to Helena yesterday evening when Helena ran the bare bones of their plan by her as she had to. 

The whole thing is over in less than five minutes; everyone disperses as soon as Myka and Helena reach their homeroom. It’s almost as if it never happened, but Helena knows Claudia has filmed the whole thing, for the GSA’s website – this will live on forever, even if it wasn’t seared into her brain.

Mrs. Lattimer calls for them to settle down. She doesn’t mention the incident at all, but her face is still fierce with pride, and Helena thinks it’s mostly directed at her son, maybe Myka too – but then Jane nods _at her_ as the class ends, and pats her shoulder as Helena passes her by to leave the room. 

Jane Lattimer is proud of her, too. 

It’s been a while since Helena felt the warm swell of someone being proud of her. Since Aunt Tee died, in fact. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from crying, and somehow makes it through the rest of the day.

On Tuesday morning, the picture of Myka and her hugging in the empty parking lot is up on the GSA’s notice board, and right next to it there’s a close-up of yesterday’s kiss. During second break, as Helena walks past it (which might or might not be the third time she’s done so) with Steve, a GSA member is taking them down. Helena is about to protest, but then she sees the words smeared across the two photos in bright red marker, and her stomach twists. Before the nausea can settle in, though, Tam, another GSA member steps up next to Steve and her. 

“Don’t worry,” she says lightly, “we’re keeping an eye on it. We have a dozen prints, and can make a dozen more if necessary.” She shakes her head. “It’s like people don’t even know there’s a CCTV camera up there,” she adds, pointing to the ceiling. “We’ll get whoever this was, don’t worry.”

Helena barely has the wherewithal to thank her. 

She can no longer blend into the crowd in the corridors; there are cheers at every corner. By half-spoken agreement (as in, everyone in the Team Teen Avengers group chat has offered, even if Helena hasn’t outright asked), neither Helena nor Myka walk the hallways alone – sometimes it’s the two of them together (and then the cheers are loudest, especially when they’re holding hands, which… blanks out Helena’s mind completely; Myka could take her to any classroom in the bloody building, which of course she doesn’t because she’s Myka), other times it’s someone from the gang who she shares her next class with. 

It’s nerve-wracking and elating at the same time. 

Helena is glad when she and Myka make it up to the attic that afternoon – she has half been afraid that with all the attention they might not be able to slip away unnoticed. 

She clings to Myka for a good minute before they even sit down on the futon, and Myka clings to her in turn. They’re holding each other up; it’s a good metaphor, all things considered.

It’s the last week before the holiday break, and she’ll see Charlie again for Christmas. Helena’s nerves about that override almost every other concern, except for the OB appointment on Friday.

She’s starting to show, definitely. When she looks down her naked body, past her breasts, which to her absolute annoyance strain the new bra already, there’s a swell to her belly. It doesn’t show through the clothes she’s wearing; not with all the layers in winter, not with her style being what it is – but it’s there. Myka suggests taking a picture, right up there in the attic, on Thursday when Helena tells her. Helena feels self-conscious about it for a moment – no shirt, not sweater, is Myka’s suggestion, just trousers and Helena’s ill-fitting bra. But then she re-frames it for herself as a documentation of her pregnancy, nothing more (and also nothing less), and lets Myka take the picture, even lets her put two marks (photographer and subject) on the floor with duct tape so that they can take the same picture from the same angle as the weeks go past.

And then, with the picture taken and stored securely in a protected folder on their phones, with Myka’s phone put away and Helena turning back to where she’s tossed her shirt, Myka stops her with an unsteady hand and a hopeful expression. “Can I- May I…” Her gaze falls down to the swell, and Helena’s breath hitches. 

“Yes,” she says, soft and gentle, just as Myka’s touch is when it comes. 

“Hey,” Myka says, even quieter than Helena, to the swell. “Hey little one. Nice to see you. I mean… we’ll be seeing you tomorrow, but that’s, you know, technology. This is…” her eyes flicker upwards and meet Helena’s. “This is something else.” 

Her gaze is full of awe, and hard to meet, when Helena still hasn’t answered her question. 

She never expected Myka to talk to the baby. 

It is a heartbreakingly tender moment, with Myka’s hands still on her skin, warm and reassuring and throwing her heart into utter disarray.

Helena doesn’t have an answer for Myka; she doesn’t even know how to think to get one. The whole thing is just too large, like an outsized cogwheel that won’t fit into your machine no matter how you turn it over and over. 

The appointment with Doctor Calder is quicker than the first one, even if there’s a pelvic exam this time. But there are far fewer questions, mostly about which tests Helena wants and doesn’t want, and then she’s looking at another black-and-white feed on the ultrasound machine.

“Look at that,” Doctor Calder exclaims happily. “You’re not showing it much from the outside – and that’s perfectly alright,” she adds, “every body does this differently, but here we are!” 

The baby is most certainly larger than a month ago. 

Helena snorts at her own incredulity – that’s what babies _do;_ they grow. It’s not like she hasn’t had the aches and pains and bathroom breaks to prove it. Myka catches her hand and squeezes it; her eyes are bright, resting on the monitor, on the baby that’s visible on it.

“Okay, let me try from over here,” the doctor murmurs, “since you don’t want to know the sex. Do you want me to angle the monitor away, only show you the feed once I’ve made sure it’s safe?”

Helena quickly nods. The thought of knowing still discomfits her; she can’t help it. She doesn’t want to feel happy or dissatisfied one way or another, and even though, truth be told, she doesn’t know if she would if she knew, best to play it safe. “Yes please.”

“Alright,” Doctor Calder smiles. “Okay, here we go.” There’s a small frown of concentration on her face now as she moves the wand this way and that, and finally holds it still, angling the monitor back towards Helena with her other hand. “All curled up,” she announces, “nothing to see. A good four inches, like before – a bit smaller than average. Fits with your belly size, and don’t worry, it is still a perfectly healthy size. Averages are just averages, right? Some babies will be larger, some will be smaller, and still be alright. Everything looks perfect from what I see, size, development, movements – if you haven’t felt him or her yet, don’t worry,” she adds, “it can take up to week twenty, for first-time mothers.”

“Yeah, you said last time,” Myka nods. She suddenly gasps. “Is that- are they sucking their thumb?”

“Yep,” Doctor Calder laughs and taps the keyboard to take a screenshot. “There you go, caught it for you.”

“Wow,” Myka breathes. She looks at Helena and giggles, just the once, and it is one of the cutest things Helena has ever seen or heard. 

It’s like the answer is hovering just out of reach, when these things happen, when Helena feels like this. 

Doctor Calder pronounces the baby perfectly healthy, takes Helena’s weight and measurements and pronounces her perfectly healthy too, wishes them a nice holiday break, and sends them off with a stack of printouts and gigabytes worth of more photos and videos on their flash drives.

Helena knows that some of the printed pictures end up on the Berings’ fridge – she would love to see them more often than just on those days when she visits, but she can’t, not yet. Mrs. Frederic doesn’t know, so there won’t be any photos on her fridge, or in Helena’s room, or anywhere else easy to see. It’s weird. It’s yet another thing tugging Helena this way and that, and she’s starting to feel a little frayed around the edges. At least Leena isn’t teasing her about Wilbur and Callisto. Clinging to a bear that smells like Myka helps at night, that’s just it.

And then Charlie arrives. 

The taxi driver takes bag after bag from the boot, and Charlie laughs and spreads their arms over the mess. “Couldn’t decide whether to bring the violin or the cello so I brought them both! Happy Christmas, Hellbug!” They spread their arms wider and Helena _launches_ herself at them, and Charlie lifts her and whirls her around. “Look at you all grown up!” they exclaim when they set her down. “Little baby Hellkin is not so little anymore!” They plant a kiss on each cheek, hold her at arm’s length, and _beam_ at her. Then their gaze moves away from Helena’s face. “Oh! You must be Leena?”

Helena shakes herself out of just contemplating her sibling, and quickly makes the introductions; both Leena and Mrs. Frederic are at the door, smiling in welcome. 

Mrs. Frederic has flat-out refused to entertain the idea of Charlie finding a hotel room; there’s a mattress in Helena’s bedroom now, promising sleepless nights sitting up and catching up. First, though, Charlie proceeds to charm the Frederics with all the ease of a natural born front fairy. And yes: Charlie tinkles. Charlie is free, and fully at home in their skin, and it’s enchanting. They are barely recognizable, and yet so obviously, unmistakably true to themselves that morose, angry, sullen Charles Wells is but a distant memory even already that evening. 

They even get Helena to agree to a little impromptu performance with the cello they’ve brought and Mrs. Frederic’s piano; the two of them fall back on the Swan because they always do, because it’s muscle memory for both of them, barely a conscious thought or significant look necessary as they slip back into melody and harmony. Charlie’s electric cello is impressive, its sound easily as warm and full as that of any regular instrument. Hard to believe it came from a suitcase slender enough for most airlines to shrug off.

It takes all of Helena’s composure not to start crying two bars in. It’s only when they’re finally alone in her bedroom that she hugs Charlie, tight and almost angry and with fierce tears in her eyes. “I missed you,” she whispers into their shoulder. 

“Sweet demon spawn, I missed you too,” they reply. “Every day. Lord, I am so sorry I-”

“Don’t.” Helena shakes her head. “Don’t be. You’re alive. You wouldn’t be if you’d stayed. That’s all there is to it.”

“It’s not,” they insist, “but let’s not talk about this today, okay? I don’t want to argue, I want to know how you are-” they lower their voice for the rest of the sentence, “and the next generation you’re cooking up.”

The ultrasound pictures shut them up as surely as they do Helena. Helena sees Charlie’s eyes flicker to the upper left corner again and again, where her name, white letters on black background, unequivocally pronounces this her baby. 

“Sweet ever-loving underworld,” they breathe after a few minutes and look up at Helena. 

“I’m showing a little, too,” she admits. 

Their gaze falls to her belly and they frown quizzically, and Helena pulls her shirt tight and blushes. 

“Hellbug…” Again it’s nothing more than a breath, reverent and stunned. They look up again and there’s tears in their eyes. “I’ll be-” And then they wrap Helena in the tightest hug yet. 

Helena might be shedding a few tears of her own at that point – truth be told, they’re both crying, and not just over a baby demon spawn. 

And the only reason why Helena gets any sleep that night is that she gets a text, at midnight, from Myka, telling her to stop talking and go to sleep – in the group chat that also has Jean, Shaw (as a contact point to Nahid the doula auntie) and most importantly Jane Lattimer in it. The thought of explaining to an irate Jane Lattimer that Helena gossiped the night away with her sibling, even if Helena hasn’t seen them in four years, is scary. 

Charlie laughs at that, but complies – with the rider that they want to meet this fearsome lady. Helena imagines Pete’s expression when he learns that the fabled front fairy of CATTA wanted to meet his mother before meeting him, and immediately agrees. 

The next morning, since Helena is officially off school for the holidays now, Charlie asks her to make some more music with them, and Helena learns that she can’t say no to Charlie when they get that pleading look, any less than she can say no to Myka when Myka does.

It doesn’t exactly bode well for her authority towards her child.

They spend a few hours catching up on playing together and Helena _revels_ in it, to the point where she doesn’t even mind that Mrs. Frederic and Leena get to hear not just them playing, but Helena messing up every now and then.

“I thought you had an e-piano around?” Charlie asks when Helena tells them as much.

“It’s in school,” Helena replies, and for a moment envisions Charlie in the attic. Would Myka be okay with that? Charlie would most certainly love it, she’s sure. But the school is closed for the holidays, and so it won’t happen anyway.

“Oh. I see.” Charlie’s eyes are excited rather than commiserating, but Helena puts that down to the idea of playing some more and forgets it, right until Christmas Day, which they’re spending at the Berings. 

Helena isn’t nervous about Charlie meeting Jean or Tracy or Shaw or Claudia, who’s still bunking at the Berings’; she doesn’t even care if Warren Bering’s reaction will be polite or less than – but the thought of Charlie meeting _Myka_ has her hands sweating. 

“No shovel talk,” she hisses in Charlie’s ear as they ascend the stairs behind the bookstore shortly after noon. 

“Well, have you put a ring on her finger yet?” Charlie grins back, and Helena chokes on thin air, and Charlie laughs out loud. 

Jean Bering is standing in the open door, arms outstretched. “Helena, sweetheart, merry Christmas. And you must be Charlie! Merry Christmas to you too.”

“Happy Christmas, Mrs. Bering,” Charlie replies in their best ‘charming Brit’ voice while Helena gets hugged.

Jean Bering truly, honestly blushes. “Oh do call me Jean, dear.” She looks a bit undecided for a moment, then offers Charlie a hug too, which they easily accept. “Come in, come in. We’ve got something waiting here for you, my daughter tells me.”

“That is correct,” Charlie confirms with a grin, and Helena frowns. What is that about?

Her question is answered barely five minutes later, when she’s crying over a five-foot long box she’s just unpacked.

“Happy Christmas, my sweet holly-bedecked demon spawn,” Charlie grins at her, and now she knows why they insisted on bringing their cello along today. 

In her excitement to set up her new very own electric piano and discover all it can do (and it’s a lot, “only the best for you,” as Charlie says), she completely neglects to be nervous about the Berings, Shaw and Claudia being around and listening in. 

“Let’s start with something easy,” Charlie says when the piano is standing. “How about the Ave?”

Helena smiles and nods and launches into her part; it is truly easy – she’s been playing that since she was seven years old. 

“Oh,” someone gasps from behind them, and when Charlie sets in with the melody on their cello, a female voice sings out alongside it – Jean Bering stands a little way away in the middle of the living room, blushing even harder than earlier, but sure on every note. Charlie, recognizing it, starts weaving in and out of the melody she provides, improvising flourishes around it as Helena provides the foundation for the both of them. 

“Wow, Mom,” Tracy says quietly when the last notes have flown from Helena’s fingers. “I mean, no offense,” she says towards Helena and Charlie, “wow to you guys too, but: wow, Mom.” At her shoulder, Myka just nods, slack-jawed. Claudia doesn’t even do that; she just stares.

Jean’s smile is abashed but happy. “Thank you, sweetheart. Gosh, I haven’t sung this one in a while, have I!” She claps her hands on her cheeks and turns and beams at Helena and Charlie. “Thank you, you two. That was wonderful. Will you play some more later?”

“Of course we will,” Charlie says before Helena can even glare at them. They just grin at her. “We’ve been practicing for _ever.”_

Helena rolls her eyes. 

There’s more gift-giving then; Helena receives belly butter from Tracy, a massage gift card from Myka’s parents (probably Jean more than Warren, although his signature _is_ on the accompanying card), and-

Helena laughs as she sees the logo on the little box. After all, her gift for Myka is in a similar box. When Myka realizes this, her eyes grow round. 

“When did you get that?”

“When I went off to go to the bathroom,” Helena tells her with a wide grin. “Absolutely a bonus when you’re pregnant: nobody thinks twice when you say you have to go to the loo.” Helena nods her chin at the box in Myka’s hand. “Open it?”

Helena’s gift for Myka is a necklace. Silver filigree chain, two small stone beads, one brown like Helena’s eyes, one hazel like Myka’s, framing a small silver book pendant left and right. The necklace is long enough that it’ll slip into Myka’s shirt, easily hidden from sight. Not that they need to hide anymore – but Helena didn’t know that when she got it. And no, it’s not a ring; but it is a symbol.

Myka’s gift for Helena is a bracelet of dark brown leather, equally unobtrusive. Soft and strong, it has a small bronze cogwheel threaded on the center strand, and now Helena realizes why the store attendant, when she came in and asked obliquely what Myka (‘the other girl who was just here’) might have gotten, insisted she got one more each of the brown and hazel beads – they can frame the cogwheel just as Myka’s beads frame the book, each piece of jewelry mirroring the other.

Symbols. 

Everyone present recognizes it, too, and Helena is doubly relieved that these aren’t rings in any shape, kind or form – the ribbing is kind and friendly, not incredulous at two teenagers going too far too fast. Still, her thoughts linger on the connection the bracelet and necklace represent, and on the realization that she really actually wouldn’t have minded rings all that much except for the unwanted attention they’d get.

Christmas dinner is remarkably relaxed, all things considered. Myka loves Charlie for having given Helena a piano, Charlie loves Myka for loving Helena, Shaw and Tracy and Claudia are moonstruck at meeting the C in CATTA, Jean loves having so many people around the table, Warren is polite and not even grudgingly so. Something to do, probably, with the fact that there’s an LGBTQIA* shelf in the bookstore now; he really does seem to be trying to reach out to his daughters. He even makes a joke about being the only man at the table; a joke that doesn’t sound hostile, just slightly awkward. Charlie _beams._

After dinner, Charlie announces that they’ve developed a background track for the e-piano before they had it shipped to Colorado – the full orchestral score of the Carnival of the Animals, minus one cello and one piano. They hand Helena the sheet music with a flourish, and Jean volunteers to turn the pages, pulling another chair next to the one Helena is using instead of a piano bench. 

Helena is glad to have the notation in front of her; she’s used to playing the whole of it on solo piano, not to being one of two pianos in the orchestral version, so she needs the cues to play – but play she does, the bracelet a slight, unfamiliar friction on her wrist. When the Swan comes around, she doesn’t even try to stop her tears. The Christmas tree lights refract into rainbows next to her, and Jean continues to turn the pages even though Helena isn’t looking at them at all anymore, and then Helena’s hands still on the keys and Myka is hugging her from behind and Charlie is pressing the stop button for the playback before the finale can start. 

She lets herself sink into Myka’s arms, turning her face away from the couch with Warren, Tracy, Shaw and Claudia on it so that only Jean can see her tears, and then Jean is hugging her too, and a moment later she feels Charlie stepping up next to her, blocking her further from view and offering their own embrace. 

She’s swaddled in love, and she can’t handle it. 

If anyone asks, she will blame hormones. 

“Sweet _Lilith,_ Hellbug,” Charlie exhales, later that night when they’re back at Mrs. Frederic’s – the Berings’ place isn’t large enough to host two more overnight guests, and Helena doesn’t want to leave Charlie by themselves, even if that means a night not spent with Myka. Who has Claudia camped out in her room still, anyway, after all. “The way she _looks_ at you,” Charlie goes on. “If I didn’t have Wooly I’d be jealous!”

Wooly is, from what Helena has learned in recent weeks, CATTA’s producer, and a genius, and gorgeous, and ‘so camera-shy it’s adorable’, and Charlie’s boyfriend.

But Helena can’t really think about Charlie’s love life right now. “She’s asked me to marry her,” she informs her sibling. 

“What!” Charlie sits bolt upright on their mattress. “Tell me you said yes.”

“Charlie, I’m-”

They groan, and run their hands down their face in theatrical despair. “Helenaaa,” they wail softly. “Hellbug, my sweet blindsided demon kin, _look at her._ I’ve been around her for five hours and _I_ can see she worships the ground you walk on.”

“I don’t want to be worshipped, for God’s sake,” Helena grouses.

“What about loved, then?”

Helena grits her teeth. She walked right into that one. “We’re seventeen, Charlie!”

“So what!” They stare at her. “Seriously, Helena, so fucking what? She loves you, you love her, she wants to fucking marry you – what are you waiting for?”

“I can’t ask that of her,” Helena replies, affronted that she even needs to spell this out. 

“What, like it’s a hardship to love you?” Charlie looks truly baffled. 

Helena rolls her eyes. “Cha-Cha, I am _pregnant.”_ Isn’t it obvious?!

“What,” they retort with a bratty little eye-roll of their own, “like it’s a hardship to love you and your child?”

It’s as if they don’t _want_ to understand. Tears spring into Helena’s eyes again and she curses, dashing them away furiously. 

“Hellbug, let me ask you something,” Charlie says, catching her wrists. They kneel in front of her now, eyes very solemn. “Look, I get the whole ‘this is a big deal’ thing, but consider this: if roles were reversed; if she was pregnant and you in love with her like you are – would you want to spend the rest of your life with her and her baby? Would _you_ offer to marry _her?”_

“Of course!” Again: isn’t that obvious?!

“No, Helena, think about it,” they insist. “Think about swollen ankles and her being moody or irrational and lashing out at you simply because you’re the one who’s there. Think about holding her hand through labor and childbirth. Think about getting up in the middle of the night and heating up milk she pumped earlier so that you can feed the baby so that she can get some sleep. Think about messes and PTA meetings and arguments about pocket money and-”

“I get the picture,” Helena says, a little annoyed. “What’s your point?”

“Would you be happy to marry her with all of that coming? Adapt your plans for the foreseeable future? Stand with her through it, be at her side?”

“Yes!”

“Because she deserves your love?”

_“Yes!”_

“So what makes her different from you?”

“What?”

“Helena,” Charlie says with an almost pained sigh. “Hellkin, sister mine. You deserve to be loved. You know that, right? So _let her love you,_ you numbskull.” Their voice becomes achingly tender. “Or have you forgotten what Aunt Tee taught us?”

Helena just stares at them. Their words are needles poking at a very thin membrane over a very large abyss; she can’t let them get through.

“Let me tell you something that cost me just about three years of therapy, okay?” Charlie says gently. “You are worthy of being loved. Not for what you can do, not for what you own, not for how you please others: just for who you are, flaws and fuck-ups and all. Helena, please, _please_ don’t make my mistake. Don’t do a Ludwig van and go through endless, pointless repetitions before you get to your finale. It’s right here. _She’s_ right here. Grab that major key with both your hands and never _ever_ let it go; you deserve it, darling, you do.”

Helena’s view swims again; tears fall loose as she stubbornly shakes her head, as Charlie rises to hug her. 

“I know,” they whisper. “It’ll take a while to unlearn what our parents fucked up. Just keep telling yourself this: you deserve to be loved. You do. Even if you don’t believe it quite yet, tell yourself, over and over and over till it sinks in. And let her tell you, too, over and over and over. Okay? Let her love you, darling. Just let her.”

Their words hurt. 

_Hurt._

Helena is bent almost double they hurt so much. She can’t get air they hurt so much. The abyss is pulling her under, drowning her, and here are Charlie’s arms, holding her up, keeping her from sinking. 

It seems like hours before she can even draw a breath, and then the crying starts in earnest. At some point Charlie shoves Callisto into her arms; the bear, freshly from Myka’s room, smells like love and brings a fresh wave of tears. But as Helena cries, it feels… it doesn’t feel bad. It’s not the heartbroken kind of hurt that’s shaking her; it’s more like something is flowing out of her that used to hurt, and once it’s gone, it’ll be gone and the abyss can start to fill up and have moss grow over it. She’s felt like this with Myka before, and it’s either more of that or a new aspect of it because Charlie’s finally here – either way, it doesn’t feel bad. 

She is loved; she knows that. The deserving part – she’ll work on that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to all who celebrate; happy Friday to all who don't! I hope you have a good day, with something nice to do or look forward to as this mess of a year winds down. 
> 
> To anyone who hasn't heard of it yet: Joanne Kelly and other Warehouse actors are doing live, purchasable one-on-one Zoom chats tomorrow (Dec 26, 2020 from 1pm Pacific Time). It's hosted by WizardWorld (I'm not affiliated, I just want everyone to know) - just google them and you'll find it. I made myself a Christmas present of that, that's my nice thing to look forward to! I hope I'll get to tell her how much Myka Bering means to me. I mean... *gestures at this fic and all the others* none of this would exist without her and Jaime Murray being our stalwart captains.


	35. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Year's Eve and resolutions!
> 
> Next chapter will go up on January 4th.

Jane is having everyone over (and some of them overnight) for New Year’s – Jeannie and Arnaud, the Berings with Shaw and Claudia in tow, Steve and his mother and Josh who’s been staying with them, Jack and Rebecca whose chemo has been timed so that she has a break over the holidays, the Frederics, Helena and Charlie. And the three families that are the Lattimers’ immediate neighbors – the Rodriguez’, the Barnabys, and the Mannheimers. 

Among those three families are seven kids, ranging from a wide-eyed baby Mrs. Barnaby carries around to the older of the two Rodriguez kids who, to Helena’s completely untrained eye, looks like he could be ten? Eleven? She’s equal parts intrigued and mortified especially by Baby Barnaby – the idea of holding a baby the way Mrs. Barnaby does is calling out to her, but how on Earth would she ever ask?

It’s Jane who, as if she’s read Helena’s mind, calls out to her neighbor, “Eliza, there are plenty of strapping teenagers here. Let them take Kevin for a while, and rest your back. Eh?”

Claudia immediately hightails it and Myka, who looks a vision in a familiar blue button-up tucked into fitted trousers, follows her with worry on her face. Tracy immediately volunteers to hold baby Kevin, citing her work at the day care as proof that she knows how to safely do so. When Mrs. Barnaby smiles her thanks, a small crowd forms around Tracy – Shaw is right next to her, and Pete’s there too, proudly claiming the label ‘strapping’ for himself, ‘you know, as a wrestler’. Josh is carefully edging over – and then Charlie nudges Helena close, too, with a ‘I know you want to’ whispered in her ear.

Before Helena can protest, though, the younger Rodriguez comes up to Charlie. “Are you a boy or a girl?” she asks, brows furrowed as if conducting the most important of investigations. Helena thinks the kid might be at the top edge of kindergarten age, close as she can pinpoint – she’s really not good at this.

“At least tell me your name first, youngster,” Charlie says and kneels down, “before you ask the personal questions, alright?”

“I’m Juanita but you can say Nita,” the kid says, the words half-blurring together as if this is how she always introduces herself. 

“Hi Juanita Nita,” Charlie replies. “See, I’m neither a boy nor a girl. I’m a fairy.” He gives the girl a conspiratorial wink, and her eyes grow wide. 

“Really?”

“Yep. I’m Fairy Daisy and this,” Charlie points their thumb up at Helena, who rolls her eyes because she knows what’s coming, “is Fairy Hedgehog.”

“I can’t be having with this,” Helena mutters under her breath, just loud enough for Charlie to hear and squeal with delight. Out loud, she says, “How do you do, Nita,” because she was brought up well. 

“You talk funny,” Nita giggles.

Well, Helena thinks, this is what you get for common courtesy. She arches her eyebrows, but before she can say anything, Charlie chimes in, “That’s because she’s the queen of the fairies.”

“Whoa,” Nita says. She looks up at Helena with newborn appreciation. “Really?”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t tell anyone else,” Helena says, trying to smile at the girl while at the same time glowering at Charlie. 

“This is the one night of the year that the queen of the fairies walks among humans, you see,” Charlie supplies. “The rest of the year she can’t, but she’s soooo curious that on New Year’s Eve, she can’t help herself.”

Nita nods with wide eyes. 

“Like, I bet she’s wondering if you can see what color eyes she has today.”

Nita squints up. “She’s too tall,” she whispers to Charlie, then.

“Ah. Give me a moment,” Charlie says and turns to Helena, arms spread wide. “My queen, would you do us the honor of joining us down here?” 

“Now you’re talking funny too!”

“It’s how fairies talk amongst themselves,” Charlie confides.

Helena bites her lips and lowers herself to one knee next to her sibling. 

“Brown! Like me!” Nita says, squirming with sudden delight.

“Brown? Let me see for myself.” Charlie makes a big show of studying Helena’s eyes. They gasp. “You’re right,” they breathe, feigning overwhelmed surprise, and Nita giggles again. 

Despite herself, Helena smiles. Then she sees that the older Barnaby child, who’s definitely younger than Nita – as in, just about old enough to walk on his own – has joined them. 

Nita pulls Barnaby Junior closer. Or should that be Senior now, since Tracy – no: Shaw now, is holding the most junior Barnaby? The kid stumbles, and both Helena and Nita automatically reach out to catch them. “This is Barty,” Nita says earnestly. “Barty, this is Fairy Hedgehog. She’s the queen of the fairies. And this is Fairy Daisy. They’re a secret.”

Barty Barnaby, Helena thinks. Well, maybe it was someone’s grandfather’s name. “Hello, Barty,” she says to the kid in her arms, who squirms to right himself again. “Up you go.”

“She talks funny,” Nita imparts grandly. “That is how fairies talk.”

Barty Barnaby is unimpressed. Instead, he inspects Charlie’s chin-length hair. “Hi, Barty,” Charlie greets him. “I like your shirt.” 

“We did those in summer,” Nita informs them. “That was David’s, but he’s too tall now, so Barty got it. It’s called tie-dye.”

“It’s marvelous,” Charlie says, eyeing the profusion of pinks and blues and greens. “Fantastic color work, and we fairies know our colors, let me tell you.”

Barty is turning to Helena now, leaning his body against her knee and poking a finger towards her eyes. 

“You got eyes like a cat,” Nita tells Helena. “I bet they’re usually green, too. Not brown. Brown’s boring.”

“It most certainly is not,” Charlie exclaims, putting an offended hand to their chest. Barty, thankfully, is distracted enough by the motion to turn and leave Helena’s eyes alone. He’s still leaning into her, though. _“Chocolate_ is brown,” Charlie goes on, “and chocolate is the best thing humans ever invented.”

Nita giggles at that. “Chocolate eyes!” She turns to Helena again. “You’ve got chocolate eyes!”

“Well, so do you,” Helena tells her, because the girl is right, she and Helena have almost the same eye color – Nita’s might be a tad darker.

“Don’t you have chocolate in fairyland?” 

“I’m afraid not,” Charlie says gravely.

Nita’s eyes grow wide again, this time with shock and compassion. “I’ll go get some.” She turns and cranes her neck, then her face lights up in a beaming smile. “Myka!” She runs off to where, indeed, Myka has just entered the living room. The girl races towards her and grabs her hand, talking excitedly and unstoppably as though she’s known Myka all her life – which for all Helena knows might well be the case – and proceeds to drag her off, probably on a quest to find chocolate in the Lattimer household.

Myka’s eyes are a bit wild, and Helena gives her the best ‘just roll with it’ smile she can come up with in her own surprise. 

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Charlie says. They smile at Barty, who’s still leaning on Helena as he looks around the room. “You don’t talk much, buddy, eh?” Barty, in character, doesn’t reply. “That’s okay,” Charlie goes on. “Not everyone has to. Silence is a good skill to have.”

The kid reaches for Charlie’s hair again. 

It’s odd to be so close to a toddler. Odder still to think that in however much time – Helena still has no idea of how old Barty might be – her own child might look like this too, might lean into her too, one pudgy hand on her knee with no doubt whatsoever that Helena can support their weight and won’t ever falter.

The kid’s hair is very soft when it brushes against Helena’s fingers as she steadies his back. He seems mesmerized by Charlie’s hair, and Charlie equally mesmerized by the child’s attention. Then Barty starts to tug, and Charlie winces. “Not like that, buddy, okay? Gentle. Open your hand, alright? Yeah. Like that. That’s better.”

Next, and with a very serious expression, Barty turns around to Helena to touch _her_ hair. Compare and contrast – it’s how you learn, Helena tells herself and tries not to hold her breath. 

“Wanna do a side by side?” Charlie asks and scoots close enough to Helena that their head almost touches hers. 

Barty’s face lights up and he lets go of Helena’s knee to dive in with both hands now. The sudden movement unbalances him, and Helena’s hand comes up automatically again to steady him. 

“See?” Charlie tells her under their breath. “You got this. It comes natural. Just go with it.”

“How come _you_ know so much about kids?”

“Sez has one,” Charlie shrugs. “Hayley. Much less patient than this one, I’ll add. But then maybe that’s normal when you grow up around a band. We’re a flighty bunch.” One of their hands makes a fluttering gesture, and Barty’s eyes follow, wide and amazed. “You liked that, Barty?” The kid nods, hair exploration forgotten. “You wanna go fly too?” Barty nods again, and Charlie turns to Helena. “Excuse us, my queen,” they say with a courteous nod, “we are going flying.” And they take Barty by the hand, rise, and go. 

As Helena watches them leave, Myka and Nita come back into the room – and Nita is riding on Myka’s shoulders, squealing at how she has to duck to clear the door. 

“Fairy Hedgehog, Fairy Hedgehog,” the kid calls out excitedly, and then claps her hand over her mouth, obviously too late in remembering that Helena is supposed to be incognito. Her eyes search the room, but apart from a few smiles at a child’s antics, no one is paying them much attention.

Except for Helena, that is. Because if Myka in a button-up shirt and fitted trousers is a vision, Myka with a child on her shoulders-

Helena can’t find the words to describe a fraction of what that makes her feel. 

Thunderstruck might be a good one. Or potentially some expression to do with light, because it’s as if illumination has flickered on in a hitherto dark corner of her brain and is pointing flashing neon arrows and other such marquee lights to the idea that this could be Myka with _their_ child on her shoulders. 

Helena just needs to say yes. 

And then Myka and Nita have made their way to Helena, and present her with an assortment of chocolate bars and M&M bags and individually wrapped Reece’s Pieces as if it’s the most amazing of treasures, and Charlie’s right: it’s easy to play along. Helena reverentially opens a bag of M&Ms, gasping in delight at the colorful bounty within, hams it up when she eats one, and Nita giggles and giggles and giggles. 

“You’re silly,” the kid gasps at some point, “they’re just Halloween leftovers!”

“Just you wait until you visit me and taste the food in fairyland,” Helena tells her with a regal tilt of her head. “Who’ll be silly then?”

“No taking kids to fairyland, your highness,” comes a gravelly voice from behind them. Jane Lattimer is shaking a warning finger. “Not on my watch. Ladies, I need to steal the queen for a moment; if you’ll excuse us, please?” Helena extricates herself and follows Jane to a room off the entranceway that has been repurposed to hold everyone’s coats and scarves. Jane closes the door behind them and then rounds on her, hands on hips. “Just what exactly are you playing at, may I ask?” Her voice is low and bodes danger. 

Helena takes an involuntary step back. “Pardon?”

Jane points a finger behind her to where they just came from. “Jean tells me Myka is still waiting with her regular college applications because she isn’t sure what you want to do.”

“Well, yes, but-” Helena splutters, “but Myka said to take my time deciding because it’s such a big deal?”

Jane’s eyes widen, then narrow, and it might have been comical if it wasn’t so unnerving to be at the receiving end. “You do know the application deadline, do you?”

Helena blinks. “N-no?” She hasn’t really been paying attention, to be honest.

Jane raises her hand to her hairline, mutters something under her breath and gazes imploringly at the ceiling. Then her steely gaze lands on Helena again. “January fourth,” she says, enunciating the words slowly and clearly.

Helena feels as though the bottom is dropping out of her world. “What.”

Jane closes her eyes in supplication and mutters a few more choice expletives. “And you didn’t ask and Myka didn’t tell.” She drops her arms and takes a deep breath through her nose. “Well, now you know. Handle it.” And she leaves.

Helena palms her forehead in a trembling hand. She feels like swearing too. Why didn’t Myka say anything? How is she to make this kind of deci- She opens the door and calls out after the retreating figure. “Jane?” 

The glower on Jane’s face as she turns almost makes Helena reconsider, but then Jane’s features soften. “Yes?”

“I… may I ask you something?”

Hand at her chin, Jane regards Helena for a moment, then nods. “Let’s go sit down,” she says and nods her head sideways. “My office.”

It’s a small room, packed with shelves and a desk with a computer on it. There’s only the one chair behind it, but Jane leans back against the desk and indicates for Helena to sit down. 

“Well?”

Helena feels like biting her lips, but Jane’s eyes are still a bit stormy, and so she lifts her chin instead. Bold, she tells herself. “What would _you_ do?”

Jane’s eyebrows rise. 

Helena can’t meet her gaze long. She looks down at her hands instead. “I… I feel like one way or another I’ll slow Myka down. How can I ask her to stay and do this with me when she aims so high? I cannot be the one to drag her down.”

“But you also want her at your side.”

Helena presses her lips together, but ever since she saw Myka with Nita, that isn’t even a question anymore. Yes, she does, and badly. “But I mustn’t,” she whispers. 

“Why not?” Jane’s voice is kind now, and still Helena can’t look at her.

“Because Myka wants to change the world,” she says, “and she can’t, if…” Helena can’t even finish the sentence.

“Oh, honey,” Jane sighs, and leans forwards and squeezes Helena’s shoulder for a moment. “There are a million ways to change the world, great and small. You helping a kid believe in fairies for a night changes their world. Who knows – maybe Juanita Rodriguez will become a great writer one day, and even if she doesn’t remember tonight, it will have made a difference. I point kids towards books with much the same hope every day. Someone in line at the drive-through pays for the next person in line and makes their day a bit brighter, and that person’s dark thoughts suddenly don’t seem all that dark anymore – their world has changed. Someone processes a visa application and changes the world. Someone collects the recycling and changes the world.” She smiles a small, pained smile. “Someone runs into a burning house to save people and changes the world,” she says quietly. “We all change the world every day, doing what we do. You are changing the world right now, bringing a child into it.”

“Supreme Court justices make bigger changes, surely,” Helena mutters.

“And who’s to say that isn’t where Myka will end up?” Jane counters. “We all get where we’re going in the end. It might or might not be where we set out to go, but if your goal is truly where you want to go, you’ll find a way to get there. Myka will find a way; and if you two walk side by side, you’ll find it together. It might not have been the path she envisioned, but,” she shrugs, “that’s life for you.” She leans back and looks at the door for a moment, listening to the sounds of the party going on outside. “I always wanted this house to be full of people,” she says quietly. “I’m from a big family, and wanted an equally big one of my own. Too many kids to legally fit into one car, Dan and I always said. Why do you think we bought a house this big?” It’s a rhetorical question, and Helena keeps her silence. “But that’s not where life took us,” Jane goes on with a sigh. “Sometimes you just gotta hang on and grab what good things you can along the ride. And believe me, there is no better thing than having a Bering on your side. I know it, Pete knows it, and you’ve learned it too, I daresay.” She gives Helena a questioning look and Helena nods. Jane smirks and adds, “Almost as good as having a Lattimer. Which reminds me.” She shifts on the desk, hands folded between her thighs now, and leans forward as if to impart a secret. “Irene Frederic is not fond of babies. She does her best to endure toddlers, she genuinely likes teenagers, but babies are not her forte.”

“I… did not know that.” And now Helena wonders how old Leena was when she came to live with her aunt, and what that did to the both of them.

“And you couldn’t have,” Jane nods, “that’s why I’m telling you. She won’t put you out on the street when she learns; that’s not the kind of person she is. But in everyone’s interest, including yours, I wanted to let you know that you can move in with us, here, if you want to. God knows we have the space, and I’d be able to help you – if you want me to. And the deadline for deciding _that,”_ Jane adds with a roll of her eyes, “is not in four days, just so you know. Talk it over with Myka, speak with Irene, ask me any question that comes up. You’ve got my number; don’t hesitate to call me or message me. Heck, talk with Pete! Just don’t-” she exhales a puff of air, “don’t brood over this in your own head alone, alright?”

Helena nods. A question is hovering on the tip of her tongue, but asking it would be rude, wouldn’t it?

Jane nods her chin at her. “Out with it.” 

Because of course she’s seen it. Helena gives herself a push. “Why are you doing this?”

“Offering to help?” When Helena nods, Jane smiles that small, sad smile again. “Oh, plenty of reasons,” she says. “Jeannie has told me she doesn’t want kids. Pete doesn’t even have a girlfriend yet. Besides, you need help, and I can provide some. And lastly, and it might surprise you to hear this: I like you. Not just as the girlfriend of my son’s best friend, not just as one of my son’s friends – you are a good one, and I like you. Oh, come on now, don’t cry. Surely the queen of the fairies is above all that. You have a reputation to maintain; there’s a little knight errant with chocolate out there waiting for you.”

Helena laughs, a bit watery, but it helps keep the tears from falling. Still. The queen of the fairies does have manners. “Thank you.”

Jane stands up and pats her shoulder. “Anytime. Now, let’s get little Kevin Barnaby in your arms so you can get used to the feeling.”

Myka gives Helena a quizzical look when she returns, but that is _nothing_ compared to her expression when Jane nudges Helena close to Josh, who is holding the baby right now, and asks if he’s ready to be relieved, and he deposits little Kevin in Helena’s arms.

Thunderstruck seems applicable here, too. 

The baby wiggles a bit and makes a few lip-smacking noises, and Helena quickly focuses on keeping him stable and safe. It is nerve-wracking to hold him, even more so when Jane answers Josh’s question about the baby’s age and Helena learns that the little person she’s holding is actually three months old; he’s so big already! How fast do babies grow; how big was he when he was born? 

How big will her baby get inside of her?

Kevin’s eyes focus on her, as if her frantic thoughts are somehow communicating themselves to him. He squirms, smacks his lips again, and yawns like a little owl, then he closes his eyes and settles, trusting like Barty was earlier. Do all kids do that? Trust adults this way? And is it normal that Helena vows to herself, more fervently than she has ever made any promise before, to be a trustworthy adult for them? 

Not even with Myka in her arms has she ever felt this protective – but then Myka can take care of herself; this infant here most assuredly cannot. Helena would fight tooth and nail for him, curl her own body around him to keep him safe – and he isn’t even hers. 

As if called close by this very thought, Mrs. Barnaby appears at her elbow. “Everything alright over here?”

Helena looks up at her, and the movement jostles Kevin. His eyes pop open, his mother coos at him, and he _smiles._ And starts to wiggle, so much so that Helena feels an onset of panic – how can she hold him securely when he’s moving this much?

“Oh, buddy, you’re hungry, aren’t you?” Mrs. Barnaby says, and scoops her son out of Helena’s arms with a practiced motion. “If y’all will excuse us.” And she’s gone. 

How did she know? 

How do you know that your kid is hungry when they’re not even making a noise, much less words?

Tracy pokes Helena’s shoulder, and when Helena looks around, there’s a grin on Tracy’s face. “Every kid has their tells,” Tracy says, and then her grin turns cheeky. “Some as obvious as the question on your face right now.” 

Everyone laughs at that, and Helena blushes, but then Charlie is back with Barty riding on their shoulders, and Nita tugs at Myka’s arm because she wants up again too, and soon there’s a full-on bid on which kid will get to sit on whom, and Jane sends them all outside because that much horsing around shouldn’t be taking place indoors. 

Barty, all bundled up, is sitting on Helena’s shoulders now, hands securely wrapped around her fingers. He’s better than any scarf, radiating so much heat that Helena feels like taking her coat off again; even though the stars are out, it’s not very chilly, and little Barty is like an oven of his very own. 

After half an hour, even Pete gets tired (he is lugging around Jorge, Nita’s brother and the oldest kid of the bunch, after all), and he covers a patch on the backyard slope with picnic blankets and calls the kids around him to explain the constellations to them. 

“You okay?” Myka has found her way to Helena’s side. Her cheeks are rosy from the cold and the exertion, and her breath rises in little puffs from her face. “You had a really peculiar look on your face earlier.”

Helena is certain she had at least three or four peculiar looks on her face over the course of the evening, but she just nods and takes a step closer to her girlfriend, hovering just an inch away from touching shoulders. “All kinds of insights going on,” she says. “Which I’d like to share with you later.”

A small startled smile plays across Myka’s face. “Okay,” she breathes. Then her eyes grow impish. “But why wait?”

“Because it’s not midnight yet and it’d be rude to leave?”

“Who’s gonna miss us?” Myka half-turns and raises her voice. “Pete? We’re going back inside, okay?”

“Sure thing!” He waves, and after a moment, so do half the kids. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to this many children before,” Helena says when they’re back through the door. “I most certainly have never held a baby.”

“You did pretty well, though.”

“I was terrified,” Helena admits as they make their way to the cloak room. 

Myka chuckles. “Everyone is when they first hold a baby. I was. Tracy was. It’s just one of these things, you know?” She looks back to the door and the backyard beyond. “I’ve held every single one of these kids when they were as small as Kevin. And look how big they’ve gotten.”

“I never knew that,” Helena says. “It makes sense, though, come to think of it. These are the neighbors of your best friend, after all.”

“Exactly. Oh, hey Mom?” 

Jean is just coming out of the kitchen, holding a re-filled bowl of crisps. “Yes?”

“We’re heading upstairs, just wanted to let you know. Things to talk about?” Myka sounds surprisingly nonchalant – until Helena notices how tightly she’s holding on to Helena’s hand.

“Oh!” Jean’s smile grows gentle. “Of course. I’ll let people know you’re alright if they wonder where you are.”

And that is how Helena finds herself, at barely half past eleven on New Year’s Eve, on the very same bed she’s shared with Myka two months ago. 

“Hey, um,” Myka begins, looking contrite, “Jane cornered me earlier. Said she’d talked to you. I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the deadline.”

Helena shakes her head. “It’s not like it’s secret information that only you could have given me,” she says quickly. “I could have paid more attention when you lot were talking about applications. I’m just glad I know now so that we can talk about it.”

“Yeah, so…” Myka’s expression is apprehensive now. “Um.”

And suddenly Helena has no idea how to tell her. “Jane has offered that I could stay with her,” she blurts out instead. 

Myka blinks her eyes in surprise. “O…kay?”

“I mean not tonight. In general? Later? Apparently Mrs. Frederic doesn’t like small children.”

Myka just stares at Helena, and Helena wonders if Myka, too, is asking herself why on Earth Helena is talking about this of all things. Focus, she tells herself, takes a deep breath, and runs her hands through her hair. 

With the motion, with the touch, comes the memory of Barty’s little fingers comparing her hair to Charlie’s. 

“I want-” Helena blurts out, and then falls silent again, because she wants _everything,_ and that’s going to sound a bit greedy, isn’t it? “I want to do this with you,” she says finally, because really, that’s the part that Myka needs to know first and foremost. “I… I _also_ want you to go to law school and become the finest judge this country has ever seen, but… I want us to do all that together. All of it,” she repeats. “And I…” come on, Wells, grab that major key, she tells herself, and her inner voice sounds like Charlie. “I want to marry you,” she whispers. “Not for a visa, not for expedience, I want to marry _you._ For… for love. I want you and me to be parents together, I want us to be a family, I-” she can’t go on but she doesn’t have to, because Myka is kissing her, short, breathy, laughing, crying bouts of kisses all across Helena’s face that she’s cradling in her hands. 

Helena can only cling to Myka’s wrists. Her heart is bursting, overflowing from her eyes, and she’s dizzy with joy. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” she says after a while, and Myka settles back on the bed and shakes her head.

“You needed to think about it. I get it.”

“But I didn’t,” Helena replies. “I wanted… Myka, from the moment you said it, or very nearly so, I _wanted_ to say yes. I just didn’t dare. I… felt like I couldn’t _allow_ myself to want it, if that makes sense? I felt that I didn’t deserve it. That I didn’t deserve you. Charlie called me out on that one,” she adds, rolling her eyes and huffing a helpless laugh. “It’s a bit like-” she licks her lip and shakes her head. There’s an orchestral piece that’s been stuck in her head for days now, and now she knows why. “Here, I want to show you something.” She takes out her phone and looks up the piece on YouTube. Before she presses play, she goes on, “There’s this element of composing that is called chord resolution. We’ve talked about chords, right, how they give a feel to the melody? Put several chords after one another, and you have chord progression. That tells a story, creates an arc of tension.” Myka looks a bit like Helena has left her behind with this change of topic, so Helena adds, “I swear I’m going somewhere with this.”

Myka nods, and her shoulders relax. “Okay,” she says, as simple as that. 

“Chord resolution,” Helena continues, “is when you have a chord progression that builds and builds and builds the tension, and then resolves into a chord that creates harmony again, that makes you take a deep breath and lean back because things have turned out alright.” She takes that deep breath now, too. “Sometimes it feels like all my life has been chord after chord of buildup,” she says, looking down at her phone between her crossed legs. “Only ever tension and more tension, with maybe a little breather in between, you know, when I visited Aunt Tee, that kind of thing. But even then I always knew it would only be two weeks. So that was never an actual resolution, you see? And then I came here and I met you and… and it felt so good, so right, but I didn’t… I didn’t dare trust it. I kept waiting for the tension to return, for my song to go back to its old key; I felt like I needed to stay alert so it wouldn’t catch me unawares. And then, well.” She gestures towards her belly. “This happened. And now if you would give me-” she looks at the video she’s queued up, “ten minutes, this might give you an idea of how I felt?”

“Oh!” Myka is startled, but leans forward immediately. “Okay, sure. Let’s hear it.”

“Thank you.” Helena smiles at her and takes her hand, grateful that Myka is so understanding of her occasional need to express things in music rather than words. She presses play.

The familiar first string chords of Spartacus and Phrygia sound out; softly and tenderly the first motif unfolds between flute and oboe. Gentle as it is, though, the strain’s already there, the hesitation, the questioning, the first hints of sadness and sorrow even as the first resolution swells in the strings. The slaves have escaped, but their situation is precarious – the piece swerves into tension again, so very quickly, and Myka shoots Helena a startled glance. Helena sends back a bitter smile as, a good third of the way through, the piece completely loses its way, looking in long violin sighs for a way to go on, and finally segues into the second motif that comes out of nowhere, ominous and threatening, angry and aggressive. It brings even more pressure with it, and the occasional major-key figures can’t withstand it, get dragged under and drowned in wild string whirlpools. Then the brass rings out and the celli strike up a marching beat, soldiers breaking into the refugee camp and scattering everything and everyone, and the piece is headed into the second crescendo like a train speeding towards its crash, and Helena stops the playback right before the climax. 

“No!” Myka’s shout is wild. “No, you can’t!”

“But that is where I was, Myka,” Helena whispers. “Confused and lost and strung to breaking point, and I didn’t dare hope for a resolution because the ones that had come before changed _nothing,_ you see? If anything they made it worse, because they showed me that this was something that was available, a possibility, just… just not for me.”

Myka is biting her lips furiously together, and her eyes are wet, and she’s shaking her head. “Helena,” she whispers, and it sounds broken.

“And then you came along and offered and offered,” Helena goes on, implacable as the brass, “and I wanted, Myka, all I ever wanted was to trust this, to take that leap of faith, but I was afraid. I was so afraid,” she repeats, and all she can do is whisper now, too. Her finger almost trembles too much to properly work the controls that rewind the piece a dozen seconds; the crescendo rises again and Myka surges forward to take her hands and pull her in as finally, finally, _finally_ the resolving chord soars, and Helena shakes in Myka’s arms as the music overwhelms her as surely as Myka’s love keeps doing. The melody winds down and then up again, and this time it isn’t so scary, because this time they both know what comes next. Again the violins pick up the theme, buoyed and propped up by the softly plucked celli, softening into the gentlest caress – this is the part of the song that Helena wants to live in for the rest of forever, held and cradled in love; this is the violin solo that Charlie is not allowed to play within her earshot anymore; this is all her longing, finally resolved, all her aching finally at rest.

Myka holds her as if she’s the most fragile piece of glass that ever existed, and maybe, just maybe, right in this moment she is. 

“This is where I want to be,” Helena says, hanging on to Myka’s arms like a lifeline, “this, here, us like that. That’s where I want to be, with you, just… just at peace. And I know,” she adds and laughs a little, “I know this isn’t doing anything for my claim that you can lean on me, but-” she takes a final deep breath and sits up. “I just… I just wanted you to know. How I felt before, and why I didn’t tell you earlier. Because I was hung up in there, and I didn’t _dare,_ even though I knew it was the way to get here. And god, I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“No, don’t- don’t be,” Myka says immediately. “Some things you can’t hurry. You got your music to tell you that, I have my fencing. Some things you can’t hurry, they just have to come together and if you’re lucky, you’re in the right spot to make use of them. I’m just – _we’re_ just lucky we were. In the right spot at the right moment. That’s all.” She hunches her shoulders briefly. _“Christ,_ that piece. I feel wrung out just listening; I can’t believe-”

“It’s alright,” Helena says. “We’re here now.” She nudges Myka’s arm. “This is the resolution part, not the tension part, remember?”

“Yeah, okay,” Myka says with a little sniff, and Helena busies herself with kissing every inch of Myka’s face. 

There’s a big hurrah from downstairs, and she ignores it resolutely; all it means is that people are otherwise occupied. It’s Myka who pulls away, reluctant and determined at the same time. 

“Happy New Year, Helena,” she says softly, and when Helena starts, Myka laughs and points at the phone screen, where the 12:00 shines big and bright.

Helena rolls her eyes at herself and laughs, too. “Happy New Year,” she tells Myka, and then they kiss some more. What a way to start it, she thinks – in the arms of the woman she loves, who she’s going to marry and build a family with. 

Then Myka pulls away from her again, and clears her throat. “Talking,” she says, “not making out. We can do that after.”

She’s not wrong. Helena laughs and sighs at the same time. “Alright.”

“So, what was that about Jane and you moving in here?”

Helena explains Jane’s offer – there is a lot of sense to it; the idea of having someone close that she can ask her questions has a lot of appeal. 

“Huh,” Myka says at the end. “Yeah, that might not be a bad idea. I’ve been wondering what to do about… no, you know what, let me start another way. I, um… after we talked, I checked out other colleges and universities, to see what my options are, you know? Like, I could apply at Boulder or at Denver campus and commute, but… that’d just take so much time away from us; I’d be on the road four hours every day and that’s just-” 

“Nonsense,” Helena agrees. 

“Yeah. And the Colorado Springs campus of University of Colorado isn’t… it doesn’t offer a lot of majors, so I was kinda hesitating to apply there. But it’s not the only college in town. And that’s the thing.” And suddenly, Myka is smiling – no, beaming. “There’s this place called Colorado College, and they have a cooperation with Columbia in New York _for their law students._ And hey, RBG went to law school at Columbia! And Colorado College is right here, like, ten minutes’ walk from home. My dad even has their reading material in the textbook section. I just never really thought of it, you know?”

“That sounds… actually, that sounds great.” And the enthusiasm with which Myka is telling her this is balm to the bad conscience Helena still can’t quite shed.

“Right? I’ve got my application for them mostly ready, I was just-” Myka clamps her lips together to shut off her words.

There it is. “Waiting for me to make up my mind,” Helena assumes. 

Myka hangs her head. “Yeah. But we’re here now, right? So I’ll… I’ll just go ahead. And I’ll apply to CU anyway, just in case. If worse comes to worst and I only get a spot in Denver or Boulder, we’ll just… we’ll just think about it then.”

“Is that alright with you? It sounds a bit off-the-cuff.”

Myka shrugs and gives her a self-deprecating eye-roll. “Well, it’s not what I planned, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. I mean none of this is planned,” she says, gesturing between the two of them with an easy smile. “And it’s still the best thing that ever happened to me.” She says it like it’s no big deal, and then acts surprised when Helena kisses her again. “Anyway,” she then says, pulling away yet again, “I’d be right here in town. And tuition is lower when you don’t live on campus; we could find someplace together, once you feel comfortable enough that you feel you don’t need to live with Jane anymore.” She beams at Helena. “Mom has already said she’d love to babysit if we need it, and Tracy has, too. And not gonna lie, the thought of… of being here, with my parents close by and Jane too, and not halfway across the country where we don’t know anyone, is definitely reassuring, you know what I mean?”

“Absolutely,” Helena agrees. “I feel _precisely_ the same.”

Myka beams again, and then tilts her head. “That’s settled, then?” 

Warmth washes through Helena. What a way to start the new year, indeed. “Yes,” she says happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The musical piece mentioned here is Khachaturian’s [Spartacus and Phrygia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXsDsLHasWo). If you want to get the full effect of what Helena does to Myka, stop at the 7:09 minute mark. 
> 
> ‘Fairy Hedgehog’ is a shout-out to Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett.
> 
> Dear everyone - here's to the end of 2020. Thank you for supporting my writing habits throughout the year; I wouldn't have made it through without Bering and Wells, and without all the wonderful feedback from y'all. This OTP is truly my happy place, and you all are a big part of that. Whatever you have done to make it this far, give yourself some credit, and take it with you into 2021 - we're not done yet with all the BS. This is a marathon, and we're nowhere near the finish line. But! That also means that I will go on writing. Because this is my way of coping, and if I can bring you a bit of joy with that, it makes my day. Happy New Year, everybody. Stay safe and healthy, and be your best wonderful selves as much as you can. Much love to all of you!
> 
> Oh, also, I have a tumblr now: find me as purlturtle and shout at me about B&W!!


	36. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, you lovelies, and Happy Birthday to Helena! 
> 
> The next chapter is going up on Jan 7th; after that there will be a LOOOONG break until Valentine's Day! I might be able to finish another one of my fics, though, to go up in the meantime and tide you over. Fingers crossed!

Myka is still stunned the next morning, when she submits her applications.

She’s still stunned the day after, when she and Helena take the infant first aid class together; she has to consciously pull herself together to pay attention – this is important, after all.

She’s still stunned when she wraps her birthday gift for Helena on the evening of January third; a pair of headphones that adhere to a pregnant belly so that Helena can play her child some music.

Only-

Only it’s _their_ child, not just Helena’s child. 

Myka is allowed to think of them that way now.

Those pictures on the fridge door – that’s _their child._

The swell to Helena’s belly – that’s _their child._

There are a few conversations with Myka’s mom where Myka picks her words _very_ carefully to avoid saying ‘our child’ and tipping her mother off – Jean’s already more than halfway to considering herself a grandmother-to-be anyway. But Myka needs a bit more time to digest this development for herself before sharing it with others. 

Helena wants to marry her. Helena wants them to be co-parents; a family. 

A family.

They’re talking about moving in together, if Colorado College accepts Myka. Before that, Helena will move into Jane’s house, at a date yet to be determined between her, Mrs. Frederic, and the Lattimers. That is going to be… different; Myka hadn’t expected that. But good different. Definitely good. Jane will be there for Helena, will explain symptoms and answer questions in a way Myka never could, and that’s good. Helpful. Helena won’t be on her own, except maybe for a short amount of time between when she’s had the baby and can’t go to school anymore, and school ending and Jane being home for the summer. 

And Jean will probably be happy to keep Helena company during that in-between time.

Helena will always have someone to ask, someone experienced to turn to for help. And Myka will too, for that matter. The thought is enormously reassuring. Especially the thought of Helena having more people than just Myka to rely on, because Myka is sitting her AP exams in May and she does need to focus on those, and how would she focus if she has an eight-month pregnant wife who doesn’t have anyone else to turn to? But Jean and Jane will be there, and that’s a load off of Myka’s shoulders too. 

Claudia has moved back in with Jack and Rebecca yesterday; the chemo seems to have worked. Rebecca looked halfway herself again on New Year’s Eve - thinner, yes, but she was laughing and talking just like normal. That has to be good. Myka didn’t mind having Claudia here, even if it was cramped and awkward, because Claudia needed her and that was okay. They didn’t even talk all that much; Claudia mostly just kept close. But Myka can’t deny that having her room all to herself again is doing wonders for her peace of mind; another, if small, load off her shoulders. It’s selfish, she knows, but maybe that’s what Jane and Pete have been getting at, that day when Myka bolted: that sometimes you need to be a bit selfish. That you gotta put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others with theirs, because you dying of asphyxiation means you can’t help anyone after all. 

_Maybe._

Myka can see the shape of what it means, and it’s… it’s disconcerting. It’s not how she sees herself, that’s for sure. But _maybe,_ in the interest of not bolting again, maybe it’s something she needs to look into. 

That thought goes into the journal, which is filling up fast.

Helena’s birthday dawns bright and sunny, the first day of the new year to do so. Myka is up early, writing down thoughts she had during the night. She’ll be heading over late in the morning for moral support when Helena breaks the news to Mrs. Frederic and Leena. Then in the afternoon she, Helena, Charlie and Leena will drive over to Pete’s where the birthday party will take place, and break the news to the rest of the Avengers.

Myka doesn’t wish to be in Helena’s skin today, but the thing is: Helena seems so much more… assured now. Serene, almost. Myka has caught her running her fingers over her bracelet (to be fair, Myka is fiddling with her necklace too, all the time, thinking of Helena every time she does), and Helena’s eyes shine so brightly when she does (as do Myka’s, probably). It seems she truly is in the calmer moments of that musical piece, and that’s all to the good, because holy crap, the part before that was… a lot. Like, ‘can’t breathe’ a lot. As if you’ve inhaled to get ready for something, inhaled and inhaled and inhaled, and never were allowed to release all that breath. To think that this is how Helena has felt all that time is _heart-wrenching._

Before, even when Helena seemed calm or relaxed, all too often Myka still felt an undercurrent in her; watchfulness, maybe. Maybe disbelief. Waiting for the other shoe to drop; Myka knows the feeling. It’s like how she herself can’t really be all calm at home, or around her father. 

Which, thinking of, she has no idea how to tell him that-

Well. 

She’ll turn eighteen and _marry Helena_ and be co-parent to Helena’s child. _Their_ child. 

_And_ go to college, _and_ go to law school, _and_ all the rest. 

He will not be calm or serene or anything when he learns all that. If he almost blew a gasket at Tracy coming out to him, Myka cannot imagine how he’ll jump down _her_ throat when she tells him about her future plans. 

A propos of that, there’s a knock on her door. “Myka, sweetheart?” Her mom. “Do you have a moment?”

“Sure.” Myka closes her journal and locks it in her desk drawer, then turns in her chair. “Come in.”

Her mom sits down on the bed, hands clasped between her knees. “Sweetheart, there’s something your father and I have been talking about,” she begins, and Myka runs cold. What shoe is about to drop now? “You know we’ve been trying,” Jean continues, “to let you make your own decisions in this whole thing, to show you that we trust your judgement, that we know you’re capable of making good calls for you and the people around you. Right? You know that?”

Myka knows that that’s what her mother has been doing, anyway, if not necessarily her father. Nevertheless, anything introduced like that, even by her mother, doesn’t bode well. “Yes?”

“But Myka, this is a big matter,” her mom goes on, kneading her hands in her lap. “And you haven’t… you haven’t really spoken much with us about what you want to do and how you feel about the whole thing. And… we want to make sure that you’re okay, you know? After that afternoon when you… when you ran off. Sweetheart, we were worried. And I know, you’ve told me you’re feeling better now, but… parents worry, you know?”

Again with the ‘we’ and the plural ‘parents’ when it’s very clear that this is Jean Bering only. Myka’s jaw tightens. “I know, Mom.”

“So, please, Myka, will you just talk to me? To us, I mean?”

“Mom,” Myka sighs, rubbing her hand down her face, “it’s fine to just say ‘to me’, okay? I know Dad doesn’t worry. Not about that anyway,” she adds bitterly.

“But he does,” her mother protests. 

“Then why isn’t he here?” Myka exclaims. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself, but really, this has been almost eighteen years in the making, and she’s sick of it. The force of it drives her out of her chair. “Why is it you sitting here and not him? If he cares so much, where is he? Why is he only ever there when it’s to watch me fail or to tell me where I did wrong? This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and he hasn’t said three words about it to my face, Mom. Tell me: why?”

“Myka, he-”

“And why do you keep making excuses for him? I don’t want you running interference; if he needs that, he’s a coward. If he’s all that worried, why isn’t _he_ here to tell me what he’s worried about? Why isn’t _he_ offering to listen?” She scoffs, and it hurts to see the pain on her mother’s face but it hurts even more inside, so Myka doesn’t stop, can’t stop. Not now, when things are only halfway out. Best get it over with. “I’ll tell you why: because god _forbid_ he actually learn something about me that doesn’t fit his idea of who I am. He doesn’t _want_ to know!” She scoffs again; it’s liberating, somehow. “So let him keep his precious ideas about his precious daughter with all her precious achievements and awards and medals. Let him think those are important, when really I’m getting ready to start a family and raise a child, when nothing has ever been more important to me than Helena and being with her. 

“And Mom, there are things I’d _love_ to tell you, about what I want to do and how I feel about the whole thing. But I don’t! Because I know that while you,” she points at her mother, “would be happy for me, _he’s_ only gonna judge. And so I don’t, Mom, I don’t even tell _you_ these things even though I really want to. I know you care, but if I tell you, I know you’re gonna go and talk to him, and he’s not gonna give a flying fuck about what makes me happy, and I can’t handle that.”

“Myka…” her mom says, voice breaking and eyes bottomless. Her hand reaches out and trembles in mid-air.

“No, Mom.” Myka takes a step back. “I… Not today. Just… I’m gonna get dressed, I’m gonna go see my girlfriend and spend her birthday with her, and I’m _not_ gonna think about this conversation for one _second_ longer.” As if by saying that she could make it true. She opens the door and stands next to it as her mother leaves, closes it carefully and then, only then, sits down on her bed and allows the tears to fall, hot and angry.

For a moment she contemplates talking to Helena about this – but now is not the best time; not when Helena has the whole ordeal of telling people about her pregnancy coming at her. Maybe after, or tomorrow. Myka will definitely talk to her, like she’s promised, just- just not right now. 

The hug she gives Helena when she gets to Mrs. Frederic’s house is maybe a moment longer than it would have been otherwise, but Helena is too preoccupied to ask, and that’s just as well. Myka keeps ahold of her hand as the two of them and Charlie walk into the living room, and for once Helena lets it happen, and that really drives home how nervous she is. 

Mrs. Frederic takes the news with an impassive face; Leena just says “Oh,” and worries about adapting all of their diets. 

Then Helena takes a deep breath and looks at Mrs. Frederic and says, “I realize this isn’t what you signed up for when you agreed to host me. I’m sorry for causing you trouble.”

At this, Mrs. Frederic gives her a brief smile. “This isn’t the trouble you should be apologizing for. Having people hold a parking spot for you.” She shakes her head and tuts. “Much worse than this.”

Helena gapes at her, then looks at Myka and at Charlie on her other side as if to ask if they heard the same thing. Myka just shrugs – after this morning, after shouting at her mom, everything is possible. 

“Helena,” Mrs. Frederic goes on, “I cannot help but notice that you have chosen to tell me today, the very moment you’re legally an adult. I assume you have your reasons, and I respect that. I also assume you will handle this situation like the adult you legally are now, with a minimum of,” again she smiles that short, sharp smile as she emphasizes the next word, “trouble for everyone involved, as much as that is possible. That includes any kind of… announcement you might wish to make in school – do try to be a bit less elaborate if you do, please.”

Helena and Myka both duck their heads; Leena just smiles and winks at both of them. Charlie chuckles; they’ve seen the video by now.

“As your host and as your principal,” Mrs. Frederic goes on, “I would like to ask you: what are your plans, and do you need any assistance from me?”

“I… would like to stay in school as long as possible,” Helena says. They’ve agreed on that; at this point it’s less about her learning things and more about her visa. Yes, she’ll be covered as Myka’s wife, but an overlap between one form of legal residence and another is always a good idea; Deepti at the ACLU said so too. “I’ve got most things lined up,” Helena goes on, “including money, fortunately. So if… if this somehow does get to my parents and they decide to… stop financing this, please let me know so I can take over?” 

“I will,” Mrs. Frederic says with an unreadable expression. 

“And, ah… I… have an offer to move to a different place,” Helena goes on. “Mrs. Lattimer has suggested I move in with her. I wouldn’t want to be a burden on you,” she adds quickly. “As I said, you did not sign up for this.”

“Nor, I daresay, did you,” Mrs. Frederic remarks, shooting Helena a sharp eyebrow. “Regardless, that proposal is one I think you should consider. Jane Lattimer most certainly has more to offer in that regard than I do.”

“Thank you,” Helena says. “For… for everything. Mr. Caturanga told me-” she stops and drops her eyes. “Anyway,” she goes on after a moment, “thank you.”

What did that mean? Myka exchanges a glance with Charlie, but they, too, look confused. 

“My pleasure,” Mrs. Frederic says. 

It’s a dismissal in all but the actual words. 

On their way up the stairs, Charlie turns to Helena. “That last bit, about Mr. C,” they ask, “what was that about?”

Helena waits until all of them, Leena too, are seated on her and Charlie’s beds. “Mr. Caturanga has, or has had, business dealings with our parents, and was present the day that-” she pinches her lips together and looks down at her lap, “you know. _That_ day. He told me last month, when I spoke to him about Aunt Tee’s fund. He overheard my parents arguing about sending me away. Apparently he cut in at that point, to suggest a certain town in the US, where someone of his acquaintance was headmistress of a high school, ideally positioned to accept a short-notice exchange student. Et voilà,” she ends, gesturing around the room. 

“Wait, Caturanga knows Mrs. Frederic?” Charlie says. “That’s… that’s wild.”

Myka nods. Understatement of the century.

It’s weird to think that someone had a hand in steering Helena here, not just blind chance. On the other hand, this Mr. Caturanga being the fund manager for Helena’s great-aunt _and_ being invited to that day’s party _and_ knowing Mrs. Frederic – that’s all happenstance too, in a way. Charlie’s right: it’s wild. Weird. But here’s the outcome: Helena sitting on a bed underneath posters that Myka gave her, surrounded by pictures of her and her new-found friends (including a framed Breckenridge Winter Wonderland photo on the bedside table), next to a teddy bear that is swapped regularly with Myka’s teddy bear because they both want something around themselves that smells like the other. Helena is _here,_ pregnant and… well.

They _are_ engaged to be married, right?

Like, okay, there hasn’t been a ring, but… but a question has been asked and a positive answer given. They will get married, _for love,_ Myka adds in the back of her mind, so… so they are engaged. That’s the textbook definition.

It’s like this whole thing is a… a crystal, or a diamond or something. Every which way Myka turns it and looks at it, she discovers a whole new facet. 

It’s pretty brilliant.

That’s a dad joke.

She’s gonna be a co-parent.

“Myka?” That’s Helena’s voice.

“Huh?” Myka tries to re-play in her head what the others just were talking about. Names. Something with names? “Sorry,” she says with an apologetic grimace. 

“Off playing with the fairies?” Charlie asks with a kind wink. “Leena was asking about names.”

“And I said,” Helena says, “that you’d suggested talking with Charlie about gender-neutral names.”

“And then we discovered that you had spaced out,” Leena finishes.

Charlie takes pity on her and moves the conversation forward with, “So what did you want to talk with me about?”

Helena quickly explains her misgivings about giving their child a gendered name to fit with the gender assigned at birth, and rather using a gender-neutral one, and Charlie beams at her. 

“That,” they say, “is very sweet of you.” Their face grows serious. “Yes, you can do that, if you want. And if you have a gendered name in mind, and your kid happens to be assigned that gender, you can totally use that too. It’s not all that difficult, here in the US, to change the name of your kid if it turns out it’s not the right fit. And hey, remember, for most people their assigned gender _is_ the right fit. So don’t worry too much, okay? You’re gonna have to make all kinds of decisions for your kid before they can tell you what they want; that’s just part of being a parent. And some of those might turn out to have been the wrong call in hindsight, but still you got to make them.” They shrug. “All you can do is the best you can do, pretty much. Keep your kid’s best interest at heart and don’t obsess. Alright?”

“Something else you learned from Sez?” Helena asks, in a carefully light-hearted tone. Myka isn’t fooled; she can see the shininess in Helena’s eyes, but if Helena wants to gloss over that, that’s fine. 

“Yep,” Charlie nods. “If they’re assigned male, by all means throw Charles at them; I’m done with it for all intents and purposes.” Their grin is big and gentle. 

Helena arches her eyebrows, but refrains from commenting. 

The Lattimer house is raucous when they arrive, already full of party guests; after Helena’s announcement, there is silence.

“Well, now you know,” Helena finishes with a twitch of her shoulders. Myka places a soothing hand at the small of her back, and Helena shoots her a quick, grateful smile. 

“Dude,” Josh breathes. “Sally Stukowsky is going to lose her shit.”

“What do you mean?” Myka asks, suddenly worried. Being at the receiving end of one of Sally’s campaigns can be gruesome. Myka hasn’t been since freshman year, but oh boy, does she remember.

“She tried to start the rumor that Helena was pregnant – oh, back in September even,” Josh says. “Something about puking, I think.” He gives Helena an apologetic look.

“Oh she can just go die in a fire,” Claudia grouses. 

“Did anyone believe her back then?” Helena asks, all tensed up again. 

“Her Mean Girls wannabes, probably,” Pete shrugs. “I haven’t heard anything, and I’ve been keeping an ear out for it.”

“Hold it,” Claudia says, sitting up. “You _knew?_ You mean I could’ve been shooting this shit with you the whole time?” It’s Myka who receives her dirty look, though, as if she was somehow responsible.

“Wait what?” Pete does a double take. “You knew too?”

Claudia shrugs. “Hard not to when you sleep over at the Berings and there’s ultrasounds tacked to the fridge.” Myka runs cold – the ultrasounds. Of course. She didn’t- she hadn’t- _Shit._ She’d totally forgotten, and Claudia must have seen and put two and two together; not that hard when the pictures have ‘Wells, Helena G.’ in the corner. 

“You have seen _ultrasounds?!”_ Pete shouts over Myka’s mortification. “Now that’s just unfair!”

The next fifteen minutes are spent hunched over Helena’s and Myka’s phones, and allow – apart from people ooh-ing and aah-ing – Myka’s pulse to slow down. Claudia never said a word. Not to Myka, which weirdly smarts a bit, but also not in school. And she seems cool with it now, so… no harm done?

“Whoa,” Josh says, leaning back. “You mean… like, this is actually in there?” He points from the last picture to Helena’s belly.

“That is usually how it works,” Helena tells him with a smirk. 

“And you can, like, feel it?” That’s Claudia now.

“I haven’t yet,” Helena tells her, “but Doctor Calder says it’ll probably happen soon.”

“Oh my god.” Josh gulps. “That is just so weird.” He does look slightly pale. 

Steve and Leena haven’t said anything yet, but that’s par for the course for both of them. 

“So…” Pete says, drawing out the word. “Have you picked a name yet? First we need a codename, so that we can talk about them without people knowing. Like, Primary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero or something.” 

Myka wants to smack him. “How about we simply don’t, Pete?”

“Myka!” It’s his best Pete whine. “I’ve not talked about this for weeks now. It’s been _killing_ me!”

“That, I believe,” Helena says dryly. “You could have talked to your mother, you know.”

“I have,” he protests, “but she’s all about the gory details of giving birth, and come on, you can’t do that to a guy.” He shudders.

“Who else knows?” That’s Steve, now.

Helena quickly lists them. “Myka’s parents, Tracy, Shaw. One of Shaw’s aunts is a doula and she knows – just my first name, but still. Doctor Calder. Mrs. Frederic, as of today. Charlie.” She smiles at her sibling, who’s been watching the proceedings with interest. Then she scoots a bit closer to Myka again and links their hands together. “Not my parents, and it’ll stay that way as long as I can manage.”

“Speaking of parents, though,” Pete says, “Mykes, what does your dad think about the whole thing?”

“You know,” Myka exhales explosively, “I have _no_ idea.” And that’s all she’ll say on the matter, otherwise this morning’s discussion will make a comeback. 

Helena seems to pick up on that; she squeezes Myka’s fingers briefly. “Myka’s mother, on the other hand,” she says, “has been nothing but supportive.”

“Us too, don’t worry.” Claudia leans forward and pats Helena’s knee a bit awkwardly. “If Sally starts talking smack, I’ll just hack her phone and put embarrassing pics on her Instagram.”

“You will do no such thing,” Helena tells her. “If she does try anything, I’ll handle it.”

“Oooh,” Josh says and shimmies his shoulders, “will we make another big announcement like before the holidays?”

“Mrs. Frederic has vetoed that, I’m afraid.”

“Boo,” Claudia dead-pans. “Spoilsport. Don’t tell her I said that,” she tells Leena hastily.

Leena just looks at her with raised eyebrows; Claudia flushes a deep red.

“Bringing it back round to names,” Pete says with a flourish of his hands. “H.G., you gonna perpetuate your initials? Go for Herbert George for real? Hamilton Geronimo? Hermione Granger?”

Charlie giggles, and Pete grins at them.

Myka groans. “Pete, let it lie, okay?” 

“Or, you know, Pete’s a good name,” he goes on, undeterred. “Or Myka.”

“I’m not gonna name my kid after myself, Pete!” Not to mention that she hates having to spell it out every single time she gives it; she wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

He gasps and his face lights up like a Christmas tree. “You said ‘my kid’!! Holy shit, Mykes!”

Myka freezes. She’s barely able to move her head to the side enough to look at Helena and gauge what that slip-up kicked loose. There’s no point trying to say she didn’t, is there? Not the way everyone’s looking at her.

“You did,” Helena says softly. There’s a smile on her face that suffuses everything with love; it’s clear taking Myka’s breath away. 

“I guess I did, yeah,” she brings out after a moment. 

“Oh my god you _are_ going to make people barf,” Claudia squeals. “Christ on a cracker, that’s some serious shit you got going there. Hang on, do I have to say shoot from now on?”

Charlie, Pete and Josh are making a veritable choir of kissing noises, and Leena and Steve are grinning fit to bust. 

“Mykes, you gotta make an honest woman out of H.G. first, though,” Pete laughs.

Myka and Helena exchange a glance. This is as good an opening as any, isn’t it? Helena shrugs and smiles and takes her hand more firmly. 

They both regards Pete with calm, confident smiles for a moment until he catches on and the grin slides off his face. “Holy shi- um, shoot,” he corrects himself. “Seriously?”

Myka nods. “We’re planning to, yes.”

“No, like, I mean. _Seriously?!”_ His eyes are bugging out now. 

Myka nods again. “Once I’m eighteen,” she adds. 

“Partly since in order to stay here, I’ll need a visa,” Helena says, “and that is a way to obtain one. But mostly because, well.” She looks down at her and Myka’s interlinked hands, and her blush is very fetching. 

“This is something we _really_ don’t want to announce, though,” Myka adds. “We know people are going to figure out that Helena’s pregnant eventually, that can’t be helped, but… Like, we’re not going to wear rings or ask the school admin to change our names on file. We’d rather keep that to ourselves.”

“What if you get investigated for marriage fraud, though?” Leena asks. “Are they going to believe you?”

Claudia scoffs. “Dude, just show ‘em the video of their parade into school. Or, man, I should have shot another one when you gazed into each other’s faces just now. Just… just do that again when they come asking. They’ll believe alright.”

“I second that,” Charlie calls out.

“You gonna have a wedding, though, right?” Pete asks. “I mean. I need to be best man and that’s a fact.”

“We don’t want anything that can get back to people in school, though,” Myka says. 

“We’ll just sell it to them as your birthday party, Mykes, come on.”

Myka grits her teeth, and Helena picks up for her again. “We haven’t spoken about it in that much detail yet,” she says smoothly. “We’ll think about it, alright?”

“Fine. Yeah, okay. Just remember,” Pete says, pointing very solemnly first at himself then at Myka, “best man.”

He’s serious. They all are. They’re sitting in the Lattimer living room, decorated with ‘Happy 18’ regalia, talking about baby names and marriage and all of that as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and suddenly Myka’s heart is bursting with pride and gratefulness and affection for all of them. None of them is freaking out; none of them is declaring her or Helena certifiable; not one of them is anything less than supportive. And if that affects her this much, Helena-

Helena has to be floating.

The way her hand is strangling Myka’s might be a hint that she has a need to ground herself. 

“Okay, you guys,” Josh says, “look, I know Sally. Ill-informed attempt at middle school dating,” he adds with a long-suffering sigh, and Steve pats his arm comfortingly. “She loves to snoop. Seriously, if we say the word ‘baby’ anywhere within earshot of anyone, she’ll hear it. So, what Pete said earlier is true. We need a code name.”

“Demon spawn, next generation,” Charlie says immediately, and then has to explain the origin and meaning while the Hellbug next to him blushes brightly. 

“It’s a good name,” Pete says, “but a bit on the nose, perhaps, with the ‘next generation’ thing?”

“True,” Charlie agrees. 

“What about Demogorgon, then?” Claudia says. “Like in Stranger Things? People will think one of us got a pet cat or lizard or something and called it that because we’re the geeks, after all.”

Pete gives it an immediate thumbs up. “Awesome.”

Myka looks at Helena, who shrugs and grins. “As long as the baby doesn’t gnaw its way out of me, I guess Demogorgon will do.”

“Isn’t it a bit… gruesome?” Myka worries.

Helena gives her an arch look. “I’ve been a spawn of hell for most of my life; I think gruesome fits just fine.”

Charlie whoops out loud, and Demogorgon it is.

They also work out a set of signals for the group chat in case something goes wrong, including the space invaders emoji for the Demogorgon, and the police light emoji for a surprise visit of Helena’s parents.

Really, these are the best friends anyone could hope for. 

Later that night, when Myka drives the four of them – Leena, Helena, Charlie and herself – back to Mrs. Frederic’s, she asks Helena for a moment alone. Leena quickly offers Charlie sanctuary in her room, and Helena pulls Myka through her door and closes it behind them. 

“Myka, is something wrong?”

Myka squirms a little where she’s sitting at the foot of Helena’s bed. “Something happened this morning, and I’d like to tell you? If, you know, after all of today you’re up to listening?”

Helena slides a leg up under herself and hooks her hands around her knee. “All ears.”

Well then. Myka takes a deep breath and tells her story. She can feel her anger at her dad return as she does, and makes a conscious effort not to clench her teeth as she speaks – but it’s hard. 

“Darling, I’m sorry,” Helena says at the end. “That sounds like it was exhausting, to say the very least.”

“Yeah,” Myka exhales, “yeah, it was. And… I… I don’t know how to go home now. Like, what will I say if I run into him? Is he gonna say anything to me? And what do I do if he does?”

“Would you rather stay here? I’m sure we can work something out, room-wise.”

Myka shakes her head. “I can’t just avoid him,” she sighs. “I’ll have to go home at some point. Talk to him at some point. Just…”

“You can also take a break of one night,” Helena replies. “That’s not avoidance, that’s regrouping; a sensible course of action when one is so thrown off balance.”

Sometimes Helena will ham it up – British it up – like this and Myka _swears_ it’s on purpose. It’s surprisingly effective; anything Helena says in that tone sounds so very sensible, so self-evident. It’s almost as if there’s a switch in Myka’s brain somewhere that gets flipped at Received Pronunciation. 

“I don’t know,” she tries to hold out. “It still feels like a cop-out.”

“Myka.”

The sternness in Helena’s voice is startling. She doesn’t even say anything more, just Myka’s name, in that tone, with that look on her face. Myka can’t withstand it for long. “Okay,” she whispers. “Yeah, okay.” The idea of spending the night with Helena, not even doing anything (Christ no, not in Mrs. Frederic’s house) but just being with her, is soothing all by itself. Like, even with just the decision to stay, Myka feels lighter, and she hasn’t even made any phone call yet or talked with Mrs. F. 

Charlie readily gives up their space in Helena’s room to bunk with Leena; there’s playful ribbing when both Myka and Helena say there’s no need to get another mattress (the words “one cannot get any more pregnant” might or might not have featured in there somewhere), and then they’re in each other’s arms and it’s peaceful again. 

And then Helena sucks in a breath.

She’s lying behind Myka, big spoon on the claim that she might be two inches shorter than Myka but her torso is longer (which is true). Her arm around Myka’s waist and her weight at Myka’s back and her breath at Myka’s neck are large contributing factors to the whole peacefulness of it all.

But there’s this hitched breath, and a little twitch of Helena’s arm at Myka’s waist, as if she wants to pull it back.

“What is it?” Myka asks. 

“I… I’m not sure,” Helena says haltingly. 

“Something wrong? Something bad?” Myka is immediately alert, already turning around to face her.

“No. No, not at all, I think.” Helena’s attention is turned very firmly inwards, crease between her eyebrows deepening as she listens to something Myka can’t hear. “Give me a m-” She gasps. “Oh my goodness.” She waits a moment longer, and then the most beatific expression spreads across her face. “They’re moving.”


	37. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are coming to a head in one strand of this story. 
> 
> The next chapter won't be up until February 14 - Valentine's Day! I'm sorry for the long gap, and I had initially planned to ask for prompts for these two for a little bit of filler in between, but I'm afraid I don't have the capacity for that. I am working on a different fic, and hopefully will be able to post that (or some of it at least) in the meantime. You can still send me prompts, though, and I'll see what I can do!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: homophobic slurs, swearing, bullying

Things happen quickly, dizzyingly so. 

The day after Helena’s birthday, Mr. Caturanga arrives to finalize the details on her finances with her. He also presents her with an old silver wristwatch that she knows so very well, causing her to tear up yet again (really, it is such a nuisance to bloody well _cry_ all the time). It feels odd when she puts it on, the next morning; she’s never worn a wristwatch before. Caturanga and Jane Lattimer accompany Helena to a car dealership where Helena ends up picking the same model and make as Myka’s car (because that’s what she’s come to know, and Jane says it’s a reliable choice), just newer and with four doors. Jane leads the negotiations, and she’s _scary;_ she also advises Helena to not agree on any additional sales pitches when she comes to pick up the car the next day.

In the afternoon and with Charlie in tow for luck, Helena passes her driving test and picks up her brand new Colorado driver’s license. In the evening, she and Myka take the second session of the infant first aid class, and Aunt Tee’s watch sits so warm and comfortable on her wrist, as if it’s always been there. The day after that, she and Charlie drop by the bookstore to show off her new wheels. Even Warren Bering nods approvingly – but the tension between him and Myka is palpable. 

They don’t stay long. 

Jean joins Helena and Charlie in the new car, and they drive to the Lattimer house, where Jane gives Helena a Saint Christopher’s medal to keep in the car as a good luck charm. Then Jean and Jane take Helena on a serious bout of maternity shopping, and Charlie tags along to make sure nobody is ‘cramping their Hellbug’s style.’ 

It’s exhilarating and Charlie is wonderful to be around, but Helena’s head swims when she comes home. Myka is there, ostensibly to see Charlie off since their plane leaves that evening, but Helena is pretty certain that’s not the only reason. Charlie leaves among tears and hugs and the announcement that they have the beginnings of a song that they want to record with Helena, and then Helena’s suspicion is confirmed when Myka asks to stay the night again even though school starts again tomorrow. 

Warren Bering is a piece of bloody work.

Myka is crying, and the Demogorgon is moving again, and overall, Helena wishes for another week of vacation just to recuperate from _this_ vacation, but that’s not how things work. 

She’s listless in class the next day – there doesn’t seem much point to it, now does it? – and trudges up to the attic and her (well, the school’s) piano in the afternoon. She hasn’t felt the Demogorgon move all day, and thinks that maybe the headphones she got from Myka will help. 

They don’t. There is no movement no matter what she plays, and her fingers don’t want to play the pieces she wants to play, and then she looks up on her phone when fetuses can hear things and hurls her phone into the curtains when she learns she’s a month early at least.

Frustration burns hot on her cheeks; by rights, the tears should sizzle as they roll down. 

Her phone doesn’t show the slightest sign of having been thrown around, not even a crack in the screen, and somehow it seems like it’s mocking her and her non-sizzling tears. 

No, it’s not a good day.

Thursday dawns with snow, and Helena knows it won’t stay on the ground, and it sours her mood all over again. 

Myka is busy with a project she has with Steve over lunch break, Leena and Pete are helping Claudia with some last minute work on a comp sci presentation, and it’s then, when Helena walks into the cafeteria all by herself for the first time since their grand gesture in December, that Walter Sykes makes his move.

“All alone, pretty?” he calls loudly from where he and his gaggle of friends are convened around the hot dog cart. “Care to join us? I could show you an argument or two to come back to the light side, you know.”

She tries to ignore him, but people are already craning their necks, and if she wants food – and lord, she _needs_ food – she has to pass by him. She grits her teeth and walks onwards, trying to keep her face open, pleasant, and unindicative of her thoughts.

“Oh, come on, pretty, don’t be that way,” he says as she tries to slip around him and his friends. He reaches out but can’t quite make contact, but one of the guys (Taylor? Tyler? Something like that, anyway) catches Helena’s arm. 

She goes still, and looks down at the offending hand that’s holding her in place. Her thoughts are racing – she can’t get to her phone right now to send the police light into the group chat; it’s in her bag slung across her shoulder. She quickly scans the situation: Walter in his wheelchair is behind her, four of his friends around him and her and the bloody hot dog cart. Groups of students at the tables are gawping, whispering, turning to see. At least one phone is out and recording. The cafeteria personnel behind their counters are utterly disinterested. 

She straightens and turns to face Walter. The smirk that spreads on his face is near impossible to stomach, but she buries her reaction deep; she needs to stay calm. He can’t get under her skin, or if he does, he mustn’t know it. He preens and nods to the guy who’s holding on to Helena’s arm, telling him to let go, so benevolent and patronizing that Helena can feel her insides roil with it. 

“There, pretty, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he says. “Look, I’m not sure exactly what you see in that frigid bitch, but if you just give me a chance, I’ll treat you so much better. You deserve what I got, baby, more than what that dyke could ever offer you.” 

When Myka calls her ‘baby’, it’s full of love. This? Is a sneer, a gloat, the ultimate egotism. And to hear Myka called a- She needs to stay calm, stay on top of it, even if anger runs white-hot through her veins. She gives him a smile. “Walter,” she says sweetly, well aware of all the eyes trained their way now (and probably a few more phone cameras as well), “I think I’ll have to disagree with you here – I do not deserve you, far from it.”

He narrows his eyes, unsure how to interpret her tone and her words. She can see the moment he makes his decision; his smile ticks up at the corners. “Sure you do, pretty,” he oozes, “just let me show you. You’re just confused, that’s all. I’ll see you right, don’t worry.”

His friends are elbowing each other, distracted by the images in their minds in all probability, and that’s when Helena makes her move. 

Fast as a striking snake, she has the vat of sliced pickles out of its stainless steel basin in the hot dog cart and upends it over Walter’s head. Then she gently deposits the empty container in his lap and pats it as if settling it into place. “Whoops,” she says calmly as he splutters, and turns away from him. “What a butterfingers I am. Excuse me, I need to wash my hands.” She walks out between two of Walter’s friends and is well out of arm’s reach before she hears his roar.

“You fucking _bitch!_ Look what you’ve fucking done to me, you dirty hooker!”

She’s been expecting it – this, or an actual hand on her again. Out of the two, words are better. She’ll trust her ability to hold her own in a battle of wits any time; an actual fistfight with five boys, though, even if their leader uses a wheelchair, is not something she can win. 

“Oh come now, Walter,” she says, turning, keeping her tone light with all the self-discipline at her disposal. She would love to stoop to his level; fury is burning in her gut hot as magma. She doesn’t care what names he’s calling her; she’s been called this and worse before. But how _dare_ he talk about Myka this way, how dare he demean the wonder of what they have? If she’s to keep the upper hand, though, she needs to keep her cool. Needs to let him trap himself in his anger, show him up for the powerless bully that he is. “Surely you can forgive a little mishap?”

“Come on, Sykes, let it lie,” someone calls from one of the tables. 

Good. 

It doesn’t have the desired effect on Walter, but it does mean that there are people who are fed up with his nonsense.

“You-” he exclaims, mottled with fury and specks of gherkin. 

“Hey, you guys, the bitch is pregnant,” one of his friends shouts, and it takes all, every last iota of Helena’s will, to keep her face pleasant and open and expressionless. To keep her eyes from dropping to her midriff and checking the state of her clothes, or in any other way try to figure out what gave it away. “Sally was right! Look at her fucking _belly!”_ He whoops.

 _Bollocks._

The mood among the tables is on edge again; people aren’t sure what to think of this new development, and any chance to save this is slipping through Helena’s fingers the longer she doesn’t react. 

“Of course I am,” she says, barely knowing what she’ll say next, only certain that she needs to deliver it with a wholly unconcerned smile. This is not a problem, after all, and most certainly not shameful. “Marcus, was it? So kind of you to notice; I promise you’ll get an invite to the baby shower. Yes, I’m fine, thanks for your concern.” She gives the bloke her best blandest smile and spreads her hands in a presenter’s gesture. Her shirt slithers back down as she does – it must have slid up when she upended the tureen, exposing her bump. “And in case you’re wondering,” she adds, speaking to the five guys around the hot dog cart and the audience at large, “my girlfriend knows and is elated about it, the biological father doesn’t factor into the matter, and I’m due in May.” Let them draw their own conclusions from that. 

Head high and shoulders straight, she walks towards the cafeteria doors. Just as she arrives there, who else bursts through them but Myka, wild-eyed and out of breath. 

“Darling!” Helena uses Myka’s momentum to dance her in a happy circle and kiss her, and then she hugs her, rising on her toes to bring her mouth to Myka’s ear. “Just play along,” she breathes. “Oh, and ask me why I smell of pickles.” 

To her credit, Myka barely misses a beat. “Hey, why do you smell of pickles, babe?”

The ‘babe’ is perfect. Helena can hear people laughing again. She pulls away and gives Myka her best smolder, keeping one of her hands in hers. Their arms extend as Helena sashays backwards to the door. “Follow me and find out,” she husks, and bumps the door open with a sway of her hips. 

There’s more laughter and a few wolf whistles, cut short when the door falls close behind them. Claudia is standing just outside it, shifting from foot to foot and wringing her phone in her hands, and gets swept up in Helena striding away, Myka in tow, to the nearest bathroom. 

They’re barely inside when Helena leans against the tiled wall. Her legs suddenly threaten to give out; it’s all she can do to hold herself up. “Check the stalls, please,” she presses out.

Claudia is already on it. “Clear,” she says a moment later. “Guys, what the hell? Joss told me- Whoa!” she exclaims when Helena slides down the wall until she’s sitting on the floor. 

“Helena!” Myka is at her side immediately, crouching down in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy,” Helena brings out through chattering teeth. Her knees are at her chest, her wrists stacked atop them, and she’s trying to calm her breaths. 

“What happened?”

Claudia gives a bitter guffaw. “Check it out,” she says, holding up her phone. 

“Helena?” Myka is too worried to look away.

Helena waves her off. “I just need a moment. Adrenaline; you know how it is.”

“If you say so…?”

Helena waves again, gestures Myka towards Claudia’s phone with a bit more emphasis. She doesn’t make a move to watch it herself; she’s been there, after all, and the audio is clear enough for her to follow the proceedings.

Then the PA crackles into life. “Will the following students come to the principal’s office immediately: Myka Bering, Marcus Diamond, Walter Sykes, Helena Wells.”

“Well, there it is,” Helena mutters and pushes herself up. “I should probably wash my hands.” Her head is spinning a bit as she walks over to the sinks, but it dissipates quickly enough. The adrenaline aftermath has left her tired, but at least it’s a feeling she knows. She’s tempted to laugh as she looks at herself in the mirror and realizes the front of her shirt is spattered – just like her first day, only this is pickle juice, not water or sick, and Myka can’t really run and get a spare soccer shirt for her this time.

Myka, for her part, sounds as if the bottom has dropped out of her day when she says, “I’ve never been called up to the office before.” 

Helena’s stomach sinks as she dries her hands off. She turns to her girlfriend. “Myka, I’m so sorry.”

“No!” Myka quickly shakes her head. “No, Helena, this isn’t your fault. This is Walter being an asshole and a bully, and you have a whole bleeping video as proof. Claud, can you send-”

“Done,” Claudia says immediately. “She’s right, H.G., this is not gonna land on you, don’t worry. Now get going, you don’t want to keep Mrs. F waiting.”

Ms. Connie, the school’s receptionist, is her usual supportive self, but Mrs. Frederic’s face is the very epitome of emotionlessness when they file into her office. “Ms. Bering,” she says, “Ms. Wells.” Marcus Diamond and Walter Sykes are already there, trying to look innocent, wronged even. “I hear there has been a commotion in the cafeteria.”

“She attacked me,” Walter snaps, pointing at Helena. “She’s vicious!”

“Yeah, we were just talking to her, you know, being friendly,” Marcus nods along, obviously well-rehearsed, “and then she dumps the pickles on him, out of the blue! He could have been hurt!”

An eyebrow slowly climbs up Mrs. Frederic’s forehead. Then, equally slowly, she turns to Helena. “Ms. Wells?”

Helena can’t help but gulp. Mrs. Frederic, inscrutable behind her desk, is more unnerving that anything she’s ever encountered, no matter that Helena has lived in her household for four months now. “I… If it’s permissible,” she says, “someone took a video of the situation.”

Mrs. Frederic stares at her a moment longer, lips pursed. Then she gives an abrupt nod. “Let me see.” The boys protest, and she quenches it with one look. When the video has run its course, she gives them another look, this time with bells and whistles. “Out of the blue, Mr. Diamond?”

Marcus starts to speak, but Walter elbows him into silence. “She still attacked me,” he maintains. 

“Mr. Sykes, are you by any chance allergic to pickles or their brine?”

He grits his teeth. “No.”

“Then I don’t see how you were physically hurt,” Mrs. Frederic replies easily. “On the other hand, I count several incidents of language that clearly defies the school rules, from you towards Ms. Bering _and_ Ms. Wells. Would either of you,” she looks over at Helena and Myka, “like to file a complaint on that matter? If I am not mistaken, this would be the fourth and fifth such complaint brought against you this year alone, Mr. Sykes.”

His mouth twitches as if he wants to say something, but he manages to keep it in. 

“Could I think about it?” Helena asks. Oh, she could take the high road, play the graceful winner and let him off the hook, but Walter _is_ a bully, and sometimes it takes a paper trail to stop a bully for good. 

Mrs. Frederic gives her another long stare, then says, “Twenty-four hours.” She closes the manila folder in front of her and crosses her fingers over it. “Thank you, that will be all.” As they all begin to file out, she adds, “Ms. Wells, a moment please.”

She sounds cold, and Helena gets that sinking feeling in her stomach again. Myka shoots her a quick look that might have been meant to be reassuring but falls short due to its own tremulousness. 

The door closes, though, and cuts off Myka’s glance, and Helena turns around. “I am so, so sorry,” she says immediately. 

“Sit down, please,” Mrs. Frederic says, utterly unperturbed, and gestures towards the chair.

As Helena does what she’s told, Mrs. Frederic comes out from behind her desk and sits in the other visitor’s chair, even dragging it around a bit so they’re almost facing each other. 

“I thought I’d been quite clear,” she says, “on the topic of grand announcements.”

“Mrs. Frederic-”

The principal holds up a hand, and Helena falls silent. And then, Mrs. Frederic asks, in a low voice, gentle as Helena has never heard her, “Are you alright?”

“W-what?”

Mrs. Frederic sighs and leans back slightly, folding her hands in her lap. “If I’d hoped to avoid this, it was for your sake, you know. Getting bullied is an ordeal I did not want you to go through. You handled the matter exceptionally well under the circumstances, but I know such confrontations leave their mark. So: are you alright? Do you need to take the rest of the day off?”

“I…” Helena has no idea what to answer to that first question. Not being seen in class for the rest of the day, though, is a bad idea, she knows that much. “I’ll be fine,” she says in the end. 

Mrs. Frederic regards her silently for a long moment, with the kind of gaze that, Helena thinks, reads every single thought in her head. Then she nods. “Very well.” She gestures towards her door. “You may return to class. Do let me know if this happens again, or if you do decide to file a complaint,” she adds, standing with Helena.

Helena just nods, not trusting her voice.

“Was there anything else?” the principal asks.

Helena can’t help herself. “Why is everyone so nice?” she blurts out. 

Mrs. Frederic raises her eyebrows. “I would hardly say bullying-” 

“No,” Helena cuts in, “no, I meant to say-” she clamps her mouth shut. Bad enough that she interrupted Mrs. Frederic – now she doesn’t know how to finish her sentence. What did she mean? “You, and Jane Lattimer. Everyone.”

“I daresay,” Mrs. Frederic says slowly, walking around her desk, “that in your life, you’ve had the misfortune of encountering more Sykes’ and Stukowskys than Berings and Lattimers.” She has arrived at her chair and is looking at Helena with eyes both grave and kind. “And I assure you it’s no more than that: misfortune. Do not look for reasons; you will not find them. Just return the kindnesses if and when you can.”

Is that a smile in the corners of her eyes, her mouth?

“Don’t,” she adds, “let me detain you.”

Helena, stunned, leaves. 

Myka is waiting in the hallway outside the school office, pacing and frazzled. “Are you okay?”

Helena can feel tears press at the bottom of her throat and does her best to bite them down, but her composure is on its last legs after all of this. 

Myka sees, of course, and her expression turns, if anything, a bit more frantic. “Helena, what do you need?”

“A moment,” Helena says. She barely recognizes her own voice. “Just… just a moment.”

Myka looks around them; the hallway is deserted, but still, it’s a wide-open place. “Bathroom?” she suggests. 

Helena shrugs, past caring. 

Myka takes her by the hand and pulls her down the corridor to the nearest bathroom. Once in, she makes as if to hug Helena, but Helena takes a step back and raises her hands. Myka’s mouth forms the beginning of a question, and her eyes are wide now, liquid and hurt, and Helena can’t bear the look in them.

She turns, faces the row of stalls. “Just a moment,” she repeats. 

Myka is silent. 

How long is a moment?, Helena wonders as she draws breath after breath in an effort to stop her heart from hammering and her hands from shaking. She clenches and unclenches her fingers and fails to find a rhythm for them, tries to find a tune to school her breathing to, comes up empty. 

How long is a moment?

And how long will it be until break time, until students flood the halls and use the bathrooms?

It’s that thought that hurries Helena along in the end. She takes one last, long, steadying breath and turns around.

Myka is crying. 

Hand pressed over her mouth to keep any sound in, eyes desperately trying to stay open in spite of her tears, Myka is _crying._

Helena rushes over and stops herself a hand’s breadth away – she herself needed space a moment ago (how long is a moment?), maybe Myka does too? “How can I help?” she asks; she wants it to come out soothing and reassuring, but she still sounds raw.

A sob fights its way up through Myka’s throat and out from under her hand. Her eyes flutter closed for a moment, then she wrenches them open again, and they look anywhere but at Helena – and yet. And yet her body, the parts of it that she isn’t using to keep herself upright, speaks its own language, silent and aching, and Helena decides to take the risk.

Her embrace is gentle at first, hesitant and uncertain, just two hands resting at Myka’s waist. Myka doesn’t shy away, though, and Helena’s confidence grows; she pulls Myka’s body closer and watches as Myka’s eyes slide shut again. Tugs off her glasses and pulls her closer still, wraps her arms around her back, and feels Myka’s body soften into hers even though Myka’s hands stay where they are.

Still Myka’s sobs are silent, even though they’re racking her whole body now. Helena recognizes this kind of crying – if it’s silent enough, no one will hear, no one will come and ask unwelcome questions. Don’t let anybody hear you cry. Helena knows this kind of crying intimately.

To witness it in someone else is heartbreaking, and while she’s held Myka before, it wasn’t this kind of crying, not this kind of pain. 

How long is a moment?

Helena doesn’t have a clue how far into the first post-lunch lesson they are, how much time they have left. All she knows is that she can’t allow anyone to see Myka this way, not when Myka is trying so desperately to keep her crying secret.

Best to relocate, be on the safe side. 

Slowly, coaxing Myka through every step, she navigates the two of them to one of the stalls and closes its door behind them. If they weren’t holding so tightly to each other anyway, it’d be cramped, but at least they’re behind a door now, not out in the open.

Myka’s breathing has changed; the inhales are a bit more even now, no longer sucked-in gulps of air. Her hand finally comes off her mouth and lands on Helena’s waist, and she drops her head, increment by increment as though she has to fight her muscles to loosen, into the crook of Helena’s neck. 

Eventually, her crying stops.

A few moments later, Helena clears her throat. “Myka, please, I need to know the time?”

There’s a long beat, then a long breath, and then Myka lifts her wrist to her eyes to peer at her watch, and Helena remembers with a hot rush of embarrassment that she herself is wearing a wristwatch and could have checked anytime. “Ten minutes till break,” Myka mutters, and then buries her face in Helena’s neck again. There’s another beat, and she sighs and straightens. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh bollocks,” Helena says impatiently, “you have nothing to be sorry for.”

 _“You_ were the one who got bullied, and _I_ am crying,” Myka says, sniffing and wiping her tears away. “I don’t even know why,” she adds, flopping her hands. “That’s not how it should go.”

“There’s very little should and shouldn’t when it comes to feelings,” Helena repeats the words Jane has said to her what seems so long ago. 

“I’ve heard that one before,” Myka grumbles, and her delivery is so incredibly put out that Helena has to bite down a smile. 

“Probably because there’s something to it?” she hazards. 

Myka just shrugs. 

“Look,” Helena says, “maybe this is one of these things we don’t have to have the answer to. Or maybe it’ll come to us in its own time. Or we can talk about it later, in the attic. Do you think you can get through the rest of the afternoon alright?”

Myka shakes her head, but it’s not a no, it’s incredulity. “Do _you?_ ”

“I’ve dealt with bullies before,” Helena says matter-of-factly, because she has, and she knows where she’s at. “I had an adrenaline rush, but I’m out the other side of it now. Look.” She holds out her hands, Myka’s glasses still held securely in one of them, and they’re rock-steady. “I’ve got a free period between now and comp sci, and then another one before we head to the library. I’ll be fine, I promise.” She catches Myka’s face and kisses her gently. “But will you?”

Myka takes her glasses and puts them back on; her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, and ten minutes – less now – won’t be enough for these effects to fade away. She does look calmer, though, and when she nods, Helena can believe her. “Yeah,” Myka sighs. “Yeah, I guess I will be.” She ruffles her hair and gives Helena a sideways glance. “I’ll keep my phone’s volume up, just in case, okay?”

“Me too,” Helena nods. 

“Okay.” And with one last, fortifying breath, Myka opens the stall door and they both stride out.

* * *

“I think I know why I cried,” Myka says, later that day and up in the attic.

They lie naked against each other under the comforter, with the space heater happily purring away. Myka is in Helena’s arms, and they’re both in the loose, satiated realm you reach after making love, after giving yourself to the person you love, after receiving the same gift from your partner in turn. Anything seems possible here, and maybe that’s why Myka is talking.

Helena makes a quizzical sound in the back of her throat, half afraid to botch things by asking the wrong question out loud. 

“I just… I felt helpless?” Myka says, voice turned up at the end – it sounds as if she’s sounding things out as she speaks. “When Claud came to grab me and told me Walter was going after you in the cafeteria, I just… I ran. As fast as I could. And I don’t think I’ve ever crossed campus faster, but I still felt too goddamn slow, you know?” Myka’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. “I needed to get to you and… and _do_ something; I didn’t even know what. And then I got there and you had it all wrapped up, and then in the office… Mrs. Frederic didn’t even look at me and I felt so… so _unnecessary._ And then in the bathroom-” Myka heaves another sigh and falls silent. 

“I turned my back on you,” Helena finishes the story. Her heart sits heavy in her chest.

Myka props herself up on her elbows to look at Helena. “Look, the thing is, now? _Now_ I understand why you did that, why you turned away. Like you said, you just needed a moment, to compose yourself, I mean there’s _nothing_ wrong with that. Right? Back then, though, all I saw was your back and your shoulders and you looked so small. And I-” She bites her lips, and Helena can see how hard it is for her to lay all of this bare. Myka doesn’t look away, not for a single blink of an eye, and Helena does her best to repay her in kind, keep her full attention on her, no matter how much the intensity tears at her and asks her to drop her gaze, put up some distance. “I kept thinking that you didn’t need me, that I had nothing to offer to you, that-”

“Myka, stop!” Helena is horrified to hear those words. They echo her own thoughts too closely, the ones that come in the middle of the night when she’s overthinking things. “That is not true-” but Myka is already going on, and that is telling in and of itself: that she’d go on over Helena’s protest. That she needs to get this out so badly that she talks over Helena’s words.

“-and then I felt bad because my problems are so insignificant compared to yours. Like, yeah yeah yeah, daddy issues, but really, at least I-” Myka stops, scowls, starts over, “At least he-” stops again. Shrugs. “Well, you know. I mean at least he’s _there._ Mom says he’s _trying.”_ She flops over and stares at the ceiling of curtains. “Pete says at least I still have him. How can I-” Her voice breaks, and Helena sees that she’s crying again, softly this time, loose and sad. “Against that, against your bullshit parents, how can I-” She shrugs again, biting her lips together so sharply they’re white.

She’s still in Helena’s arms, but she feels lightyears away. Helena has no idea if Myka is even aware of where their bodies are connection, and it feels as though the lightest of touches Helena could make to remind her would cause her to drift away entirely. 

“The problem with feelings,” Helena says, sounding out her words as much as Myka did a moment ago, “is that you can’t really quantify them.”

Myka makes no sign that she even hears her. 

“There’s no length to them, no width, no height. No weight, no emission of any kind,” Helena lists off. “We can detect subatomic particles, but we’ve yet to find a way to measure grief. There’s no scale, none at all. It is really rather vexing.”

Myka’s shoulders are starting to shake again, and then she abruptly turns her back on Helena and curls in on herself.

“But really what that means,” Helena goes on, “is that we’ll have to find other observable evidence. I listen, and what I hear is you hurting. I watch, and what I see is you crying. I touch, and what I feel is you curling up in pain; Myka-” she rolls to her side and wraps herself around Myka’s back, “I don’t need to weigh one thing against another, measure up your situation against mine. You’re hurting, that’s all I need to know.”

“…but it’s silly…”

“Myka.” Helena raises herself and clambers over Myka until she’s on the other side of her, grabs her face in both hands and forces her to look at her. “You hurting will never be silly to me. Never.”

Myka’s face is frozen for a moment, then it seems to pull in all directions at once. Her eyes squeeze shut, and the space that Helena has tried to create for herself in front of Myka’s body shrinks as Myka’s shoulders hunch and her knees come up. Silence rings loud; Myka isn’t drawing breath and Lord knows Helena knows how it feels when you can’t, when life has punched you right in the solar plexus and all you can do is clench around the agony. She’s felt like this only two weeks ago, after all. She had Charlie then, Myka has her now; that’s what she takes solace from. She wasn’t alone, and Myka isn’t alone now.

The sob that tears out of Myka is strangulated, as if she begrudges herself even that. And silent still; eerie. There comes another, just as silent, just as anguished; Myka’s whole body is straining against the force of it and Helena has no idea what to do or say now, none. Her hands are still on Myka’s cheeks but she doubts that Myka feels them; she, on the other hand, feels every tremor, every single one.

She knows what this feels like from the other side. She starts talking, says things like “It’s alright,” and “I’m here,” and “darling,” and “I love you,” not in any kind of order or measured rotation; just gives voice to whichever pops into her head. The words helped her, back then – not for their content, just for the overall message: someone’s here; you’re not alone. She hopes they’ll help Myka now.

She doubts that Myka even hears them. 

How long is a moment?

Helena has never seen anyone go so long between breaths – sobs, rather – and wonders whether when she cried like that, Charlie was worried about her oxygen intake too. But she also knows that, when she cried, that was the very last thing she was bothered about, so: best not to bring it up, probably.

Myka is still making barely any noise. 

So: helpless. Myka felt helpless, and right this moment, Helena thinks she knows exactly how that must have felt. She has no idea if she’s making any difference; her hands are wet with Myka’s tears and she keeps up her crooning just in case, but…

Myka seems so utterly alone in her pain, even though Helena is _right here._ In one way, it’s ironic; in another, much more important way, it’s threatening to tear Helena’s heart apart.

It might be the thirteenth “I’m here,” or the seventeenth “It’s alright.” Helena has no idea what did the trick, but suddenly Myka is moving, pulling Helena in with utterly uncoordinated, utterly single-minded movements until they’re more entangled than they ever were. A hand lands on Helena’s lips, sloppy but purposeful, and Helena stops her litany and relies on body language instead, holding, rocking, pressing soft kisses. 

The Demogorgon is fluttering inside her, as if trying to reach out to Myka too.

Myka progresses through several stages of calming down, each indeterminate in length but clearly definable. There is the part where she’s clinging to Helena with bruising strength, the part where she simply holds on, the part where she repositions herself to lie more loosely in Helena’s arms, the part where she stretches out her arm and roots around her bag for a tissue to blow her nose.

The part where she starts apologizing. 

Helena isn’t having any of that. “Do not,” she says insistently. 

“But-”

“Do not,” Helena repeats adamantly. “I won’t hear of it.”

Myka’s acquiescent huff of an exhale is warm against her fingers; her eye-roll very grumpy and adorable.

“I do think this is what we were talking about at Jane’s house that day,” Helena goes on. “The part where you lean on me, yes?”

Myka rolls her eyes again, but she also settles her body more comfortably in the crook of Helena’s arm. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “Am I allowed to say that?”

Helena hums and kisses the top of Myka’s head. “Absolutely.” She tightens the blankets around them; the space heater is doing its best, but they are naked still.

“Thank you, then.”

Helena nods and kisses Myka’s hair again. “For the record,” she says, “you being there helps, always. You even being in my life helps. When it comes to my state of mind, you are anything but helpless, even on the other side of campus.” She tightens her hold on Myka’s shoulders. “If it hadn’t been for you, for us, in the past few months, I couldn’t have held my own against Walter today. It’s knowing that I’m no longer up against people like him on my own. That I have someone in my corner – even when you’re not physically there.” She lifts her arm and holds her wrist in front of Myka’s face. The bracelet is all she’s wearing, taken off only for showers or baths. “I know I’m no longer alone.” Her hand drops between them, and she runs a finger along Myka’s necklace.

Myka give a little huff. “Huh. Maybe… maybe I’m not there yet. Haven’t really… internalized it yet. Which… wouldn’t that be something.” Her tone is extremely self-deprecating. “I mean here I thought all the time that I was helping you, you know.”

This is precisely what they’ve been talking about. Helena knows that Myka knows that too, though, so she doesn’t belabor the point. 

“You _demolished_ him, though,” Myka says after a while, with relish. “I’m kinda… proud?”

“I should bloody well hope you are proud,” Helena says. “Believe me, staying calm when he insulted you took every _ounce_ of self-control I had.”

“My hero.” Myka’s eyelashes flutter against Helena’s chest, and Helena snorts. 

“Says the one who burst through the doors ready to take on the whole place at once.”

“Only to discover you had it handled,” Myka counters. “I… I don’t know how to feel about that. Like, yes, I’m proud. But…”

“You wanted to take on the whole place at once,” Helena points out. “Somewhat anti-climactic to discover there was no need, I assume?”

Myka makes a little grumpy sound at the back of her throat. “I guess.” She’s silent for a moment, tapping her fingers on Helena’s ribs. “You know… you know, that might be it, actually?” Her forefinger taps a bit more decisively. “Like Hermione calling Harry out on his saving-people thing – maybe I have that too, when it comes to you?”

Helena almost laughs out loud. “Myka, you have that for _everybody.”_

Myka’s eyelashes move on Helena’s chest again. Then, “Wow.” She doesn’t say anything more for a good long while. And then she laughs. “Jesus.” She takes a deep breath and snuggles close to Helena, burying her face in between Helena’s arm and her breast. “Call me _out,”_ she mutters.

“Glad to be of service,” Helena quips. “And it’s not like that is such a bad thing, after all. As long as you remember to put on-,”

“-my own oxygen mask first,” Myka finishes the sentence along with Helena. “Yeah, I know, I know,” she sighs. “I’ll try to keep it in mind.”

Helena gives an appreciative hum, and nothing much more gets said after that.


	38. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's back! It's here! The hiatus is over! Enjoy, and thank you for being patient! And for those of you who like to celebrate this day, happy Valentine's Day!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: homophobia and ageism in the latter half of this chapter

Myka keeps thinking of that see-saw feeling she had the first time she took Helena up to her attic. When it seemed that when one of them was calm, the other was nervous, and when the calm one got nervous, the nervous one got calm in turn. 

Right now, it feels a little bit like that again. Just on a larger scale. Like, it seems that Helena is calm, now that everyone knows (or most people know most of what’s going on, anyway), now that she’s eighteen, and getting her own money and driving her own car and all that – Helena is just… calm. Relaxed. Enjoying herself. 

And it’s Myka who’s tense, and whose life seems to be teetering.

She has sent off her applications in due time, that’s not the problem – but one of those was still, or again, for Yale, at Helena’s insistence (“if it goes through, we’ll make it work somehow; Myka, it’s your dream, _please”)_ and it sits in the back of Myka’s mind like a tiny pebble in her shoe.

Also she’s preoccupied in class, and it’s bound to impact on her grades at some point. It might be senioritis, or, you know, the fact that she’s about to start a family at barely eighteen. One of the two, probably. 

Or maybe it’s the fact that she hasn’t spoken four words with her father, outside of “Can you hold that for me?” or “We need to get the Brecht restocked.” 

So, yeah, bit preoccupied. Maybe she should talk with someone; Mr. Secord, or even Jane. But she’s talking with Helena, that counts, doesn’t it? And talking about this is _hard,_ and she really doesn’t have the energy for that kind of hard twice.

Her journal is half-full already, mostly with questions she has not a single solid answer to.

One night, her mom knocks and pokes her head through the door. “Myka, do you have a minute?”

And because today has been a _day,_ Myka asks back, “For you, or are you asking for Dad again?”

Jean’s face falls, and Myka sighs and beckons her in. Her mother sits down on the edge of her bed, a cardboard box in her lap. She runs her fingers across the edge of it, gentle, over and over back and forth, almost a caress.

“What’s that, Mom?” Myka asks, unable to curb her curiosity.

Jean sighs. “It… it is your father’s. But,” she says quickly, when Myka takes an annoyed breath, “he doesn’t know I still have it, much less that I’m showing it to you.” Her eyes fall onto the box and her hands stop moving. “He tried to…” She looks conflicted for a moment, then steels herself and looks up at Myka. “He always wanted to be an author, you know. He wrote a whole novel, way back when you were a baby and Tracy wasn’t even born. Never sent it off, just worked on it, re-worked it, over and over again, and at one point he asked me to take the manuscript away from him and burn it. I never asked why, and he never mentioned it again.” Her thumb flicks over the box’s edge. “I never could. Burn it, I mean. He poured so much of himself into it; I couldn’t… I couldn’t destroy that. And, Myka, when you-” she stops herself with a deep breath. “I kept thinking this could maybe help you understand. Please.”

Her eyes are on Myka now, pleading, anxious. Myka grits her teeth and holds out her hands against her better judgement. The cardboard is soft with age, and the manuscript smells of old typewriter paper. She reads:

> The Blue Willow Sky  
> by Warren Bering.
> 
> Chapter One
> 
> When the girl was born, his first thought was fear. For her. For his daughter. She was his life; his only job now was keeping her safe.

That’s as far as she gets before she drops the whole thing back in its box as if it has burned her eyeballs. “Mom, I can’t read that.”

“Myka-”

 _“No,_ Mom.” There’s a lump in her throat that’s making breathing difficult.

“But why? He put his heart in there.”

Myka thinks this over, trying to put her finger on what is bugging her so much she can’t even _look_ at the thing in her lap, what it is about the idea of reading this that makes her skin crawl. Then it hits her. “It’s a novel, Mom. How am I to know what of this is actually him, and what is artistic license? How is this going to help?”

Her mom sucks in her lips for a moment, and then nods and gets up from the bed. Myka holds the box out to her, but Jean shakes her head. “Try… try keeping it for a while,” she says, and her voice quavers. “Okay? Just… just try.”

“Mom.” Myka palms her forehead; she is tired of this all. “I’ve been trying all my life. I told you: I want him to come and talk to me. It’s really not that hard.”

“It is when you’re not used to it,” her mom says, with the tiniest hint of anger in her voice like a spine of steel in a soft cuddly toy. “Have you ever considered that he… that he just shows his love in different ways?”

“What, like pushing me and pushing me until I got this ingrained feeling that nothing I do will ever be good enough?”

Jean winces, but the steel is still there. “Maybe, yes.” She raises her hands and adds, “I’m not saying it’s a good way. Myka, please, I… I am sorry.” There are tears in her eyes now. 

“Well, then maybe this is my way of pushing back,” Myka says stubbornly. “Pushing _him_ to be better at something. See how he likes it.” She gets up from the bed and puts the box on her desk, already thinking about the exact place in her closet where she’s going to bury it once her mom leaves. “Mom, I’m tired.” Metaphorically, yes, but it’s also late enough in the evening that Jean can choose to take it literally. Myka hopes she will. 

“I know, sweetheart,” Jean says, eyes still liquid. “I’ll…” She stands in front of Myka, shoulders slumped. “Do you want a hug?”

Myka’s shoulders don’t lose an iota of their tension under her mother’s arms. 

Jean’s expression when she lets go says that she noticed. She leaves the room without another word.

* * *

Helena is definitely starting to show now; it seems like her belly is growing every day. Myka continues to take pictures of her up in the attic and yeah, you can see the difference even between Tuesdays and Thursdays. There’s another appointment with Doctor Calder; the baby is measured differently now, and Doctor Calder proclaims a length of ten inches head to toe, smack in the middle of the average. 

Helena talks of feeling cramped inside, and Doctor Calder shows them a sketch of how large the baby is now in relation to a person’s insides, which explains it – the uterus is starting to really impact on the internal organs, she says, and offers tips on how to sit and stand and stretch and how to lie down to sleep. Helena complains about her skin itching, which is apparently due to how stretched it is, and Doctor Calder speaks of ice packs (which makes Helena shudder and Myka wince in sympathy; it is January, after all) and moisturizer, and Myka reminds Helena of the belly butter she’s been given, and Helena snaps at her that she bloody well remembers, and then apologizes for it, tearfully, during the whole drive to the baby store to get a maternity pillow. And then, on the drive back to Myka’s place, Myka snipes at Helena for never having said anything about cramping or itching (she could have _helped,_ for god’s sake), and-

Yeah.

It’s not the easiest of times. There are alumni interviews for the colleges Myka applied to, and it is fucking _hard_ to dredge up an even remotely appropriate amount of enthusiasm. And then the Colorado College guy is a… disappointment? Like the worst kind of corporate lawyer; Myka feels _dirty_ for having spoken to him. The Yale alumna, on the other hand, is engaging and erudite and completely connects with Myka’s wish to change the judicial system, and neither of these two interviews is making things any easier.

There’s another memorable argument in the attic when Helena announces her despair over not finding the brand of conditioner she uses for her hair to replace her emptying bottle, and Myka, green with envy because Helena’s hair looks more fucking _gorgeous_ than ever, tells her to just pick another, then, and things disintegrate into shouting until Helena is so upset she loses the ability to string words into a coherent sentence, and that makes her burst into angry tears and-

Yeah.

It’s probably hormonal, but as things stand saying so might be suicide. So Myka buttons her lip and that very night finds the brand online and orders the largest bottle of their conditioner that she can afford. When she gives it to Helena two days later, she finds out that make-up sex truly is its own category.

Helena shows her a message from Charlie as January turns into February; they’re suggesting hanging out over winter break, which will be in two weeks, at a recording studio in Denver that has a suite attached so that artists can stay right there as they work. They’re excited to start working on the song they want to record with Helena, and Helena is excited too, and maybe having a bit of a break from the everyday is a good decision. Charlie is specifically inviting Myka along, too, and sure, Myka is curious about how recording a song works, so why not? Sure, yeah, it’ll be over Valentine’s Day, and Myka had plans for that, but those plans _were_ for Denver anyway, so who knows, they might still happen.

The first day of recording is… a weird mix of boring (mostly for Myka) and emotionally draining (mostly for Helena, but any emotional drain on Helena usually takes its toll on Myka too), and most definitely not a break that recharges a person’s battery, that’s for sure. 

Charlie doesn’t have the lyrics fully worked out yet, they say, but the song… the song is haunting, at least the first half of it. They give Helena a little three-note figure to play ad infinitum, way up on the right-hand side of the piano, and when Charlie, on their cello, demonstrates the melody they’re thinking of alongside it, the hairs on Myka’s arms rise. Like, literally. The… _despair_ is palpable, and Myka can see it impacting on Helena. And she remembers that Charlie said this was a song they thought up _with Helena in mind._

Like, seriously?!

At least the second half is calmer, almost like it’s a different song. It’s the same rhythm still (Myka counts six beats), but a different key – a major key, as Myka now knows. The melody is simple and sweet and sticks in her mind (which is good because it kinda overwrites the first half), and the piano accompaniment that Charlie directs Helena to play sounds like water, like waves, like being cradled. Like the Aquarium that Helena likes so much, from the Carnival of the Animals, and when Myka points that out, both Wells siblings _beam_ at her for noticing. Myka had never really seen the two of them as similar to each other, but in that moment, the resemblance is undeniable.

Charlie doesn’t have a bridge yet, they say, no way of connecting part one to part two and yeah, Myka understands that; the two parts are night and day; she would have no idea how to segue from one to the other either. 

The two Wellses start digging into that problem, and that’s where tedium well and truly sets in for Myka; it’s the same notes, or variations thereof, over and over again, and ideas thrown around and tried out that she can’t really contribute to. At least Helena is having a better time of it; she’s animated and deeply engaged and it is captivating to watch her, if nothing else. 

Myka is sure that if she hadn’t called for a stop at eight p.m., the two siblings would have gone on working straight through the night. They order take-out and Charlie teases Helena about the size of her order, and then grows silent as she inhales half of it in under three minutes and declares confidently that she’ll eat the rest later in the night and the only reason she’s stopping is because her stomach is being encroached on by her uterus and she doesn’t want to barf. 

Myka, meanwhile, makes a mental note to go and buy snacks tomorrow, stuff she knows Helena likes, stuff that is good for her. 

The suite is far more spacious than Myka had imagined; four bedrooms and a large communal space with a kitchenette on one side and a big fireplace on the other. There are framed pictures on the walls, of people who have recorded here before. They’re impressive – the ones that Myka recognizes, anyway, which is less than half. Music is just… not her métier? And Pete can tease her about that all he wants.

“Oh, we’re nowhere near as big as them, of course,” Charlie replies when Myka points out a band she knows. “But, you know, the shows of this tour were sold out throughout, and the upcoming album… I think we’re really on to something. I think this is gonna take off.”

“And this song is gonna be on it?” Myka is not sure how she feels about that. On the one hand, it’s… flattering? To be kinda connected to something that’s potentially going to be famous? Even if she’s just being here. But she’s mostly thinking of Helena anyway. On the other hand, it seems so incredibly personal. To think that people all over the world will be able to hear it, buy it… The thought is weird.

“Unless you’re opposed, Hellbug,” Charlie says, addressing Helena over their shoulder. 

Helena seems to have similar misgivings. “Can I think about that one?” she asks, brows furrowed and mouth askew.

“Absolutely,” Charlie says at once. “Take all the time you need. We’re not going to start recording until April anyway, and if we get it out in July that’d be a marvel for the ages.” They gesture with their glass of tonic water. “Last album we needed six months. Alright, okay, so the one before that was almost a year… We’re getting better, I suppose.” They smirk. “All due to Wolly, I tell you. The man’s a genius.”

“And you’re completely unbiased, of course,” Helena replies dryly. “Are we going to meet him one of these days?”

Charlie shakes their head. “He’s organizing the recording sessions already; we have two songs at least, maybe more, where we’ll have a full orchestra in the studio, and he’s running himself ragged trying to line everything up. Two months isn’t all that much time.” They eye Helena’s belly and give her a soft smile. “I wonder how you’re gonna look then. This is already such a big change since Christmas.”

The rest of the night is, predictably, spent with pictures and videos of ultrasounds, and a ton of questions. Helena is happy answering them all, until, like a switch has been flipped, she starts yawning and listing into Myka, and Myka does the sensible thing again and announces that it’s bedtime.

The bed is huge. Easily twice the size of Myka’s bed, and almost a foot wider than the bed they’ve shared at Jane’s. It’s far more manageable to coordinate two people and a maternity pillow on a bed this size. Helena is asleep mere minutes after they’ve settled down, but Myka lies awake; the haunting first part of the song is back in her head. If the second part has cradling waves in there, the first part is… like what it must have been in the ice cold ocean after the Titanic sank. Yes, it’s water too, but this water is deadly, quietly pulling you down to drown in its icy depths. It’s not at all a comforting piece of imagery, and only made worse by what Myka knows about how Helena and Charlie grew up.

She drifts off to sleep eventually, lulled by Helena’s soft breaths, and if she dreams, she doesn’t remember. 

Myka tries, the next day, to pin the two Wellses down to a schedule that isn’t ‘play until we drop from hunger and/or fatigue’, and realizes it’s like herding cats. At least the snacks go down well. And Helena seems to handle the song’s emotions better today, as if she’s a bit more detached now that she’s had the chance to work on them for a while. Myka insists on a break for lunch at one in the afternoon, but instead of stopping to play, Charlie and Helena start horsing around on their instruments, throwing each other challenges and reminiscing about songs they hated playing and songs they loved playing, which is a Venn diagram that doesn’t have too big of an overlap between the two of them. At least they eat, even if Helena is holding her plate in one hand while tinkering on the piano with the other, even if Charlie is humming snatches of melody with their mouth full. And they’re both kind of silly and adorable, goofing off like they do. Helena laughs so much she snorts, and Charlie gets hiccups, and then Helena stills on the piano bench and puts her hands on her belly and her eyes grow wide. 

“Myka…” she whispers, “Myka, come here, come quick.”

And the moment Myka’s hands touch Helena’s skin, she feels it: a little flutter, off to the side a little bit. “Oh my god.” She loses her balance and sits on the floor, hard. “Helena, oh my god.”

“You can feel it then? I’m not just imagining it?”

“No, I mean, yes, I- _There!_ I… oh my god.” And just like that, tears shoot into Myka’s eyes and spill out, unstoppable as a freight train.

There’s the sound of a phone camera shutter behind them, and Helena’s head snaps up. She glares at Charlie at first, but her expression softens immediately, and that pokes Myka’s curiosity enough to turn around. 

Charlie has tears on their face too. “Sweet little Demogorgon,” they whisper.

It’s easy for Myka to shuffle aside for them after that, to relinquish her spot on Helena’s belly to them so that they can feel it too: the baby is moving. 

Charlie insists on playing only upbeat tunes after that, insists that they will continue working on the other piece later on their own, insists that Helena doesn’t lift as much as a finger anymore. Helena bears the latter for a full ten minute before she snaps, and while Charlie looks like a kicked puppy, Myka is a little bit glad that Helena is like that not just with her but with other people too.

“Say, you two,” Charlie says, maybe in an attempt to get to a lighter topic and calm the waves a little, “any plans for tomorrow?”

Helena frowns. “Why would we?”

Charlie’s eyes grow wide. “Hellbug, don’t tell me you’re not aware that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day?”

Helena’s jaw slackens and Myka can’t help it: she giggles. It earns her an icy glare that she counters with a grin. “I’ve got something lined up for us, yeah,” Myka says, trying to make it nonchalant. “If, you know, you don’t need Helena for working on the song.” 

“Darling, I would never stand in the way of troo wuv on Valentine’s Day,” Charlie says, still wide-eyed but with a twinkle of teasing in them.

“Myka, you-”

“Don’t tell me you secretly planned something too,” Myka says to Helena. “If you have, I seriously need to update my assessment of your poker face.” She’s been working under the assumption that Helena had either forgotten the date’s significance (pregnancy brain or whatever) or simply didn’t put too much weight on the holiday – maybe it wasn’t a big thing in England, who knew? 

Anyway, yes, Myka has plans. 

Helena is looking a bit put out now, and before this can go sour, Myka quickly goes on. “We start tomorrow at nine, right here in Denver. I couldn’t find – well, _that,_ in Colorado Springs-” 

“And if Charlie hadn’t invited us here, you’d have had me up at the butt-crack of dawn to drive to Denver, wouldn’t you,” Helena grouses, but her heart isn’t in it, Myka can tell. 

“I’d have tried, anyway, yes,” Myka smirks at her. “Making sure you got to bed at a reasonable time the day before, of course. Anyway, I didn’t cancel any of it when Charlie emailed,” she says, looking over at them, “because I was hoping you’d ask just like you did, or I’d somehow bring it up, something like that, and we could still make it work.” She tilts her head in question. “Is that okay?”

“Abso-bloody-lutely, sweetheart,” Charlie says expansively. “I can keep myself occupied, do _not_ worry about me. I’d rather gnaw my right hand off than be the fifth wheel. No, you two go right ahead.”

Myka turns back to Helena. “Hey,” she asks with a soft smile, “d’you wanna spend Valentine’s Day with me?”

“Now she’s asking,” Helena huffs, but again, it’s mostly for show. “Fine. But don’t even think about waking me before eight, you hear?” She grabs herself a snack-sized cucumber and, very vindictively, bites its end off.

Myka wouldn’t dream of it. Eight-ten is her compromise between allowing Helena as much sleep as possible and getting to the place they need to be in time. They make it with three minutes to spare. 

“Pottery café?” Helena asks, craning her neck to look up at the sign over the door. “What’s this?”

Myka pulls the door open and holds it for Helena; it is cold this morning and she doesn’t want Helena to have to take her hands from her pockets. “You paint a piece of pottery,” Myka explains as she trails after Helena, “a mug or a plate or something, with your own design or with a stencil or whatever you like. And then they glaze it and fire it for you and you can take it home a few days later, or they send it to you. I thought we could each make something for the other.” It had sounded like such a neat thing to do together when Myka had found the place’s web page. She only hopes Helena will agree.

Helena’s eyes are intrigued. And then they spot something on the shelves of unglazed pottery and positively light up. “These,” she says, making a beeline towards it. “Myka, look!”

Ramen bowls, easily identifiable as such by the notches for the chopsticks. “Perfect,” Myka grins. 

“An excellent choice,” the attendant says from behind them. “Hi, you must be Myka?”

“Yep, that’s me,” Myka nods and shakes the attendant’s hand. “This is Helena.”

“Right on time,” the attendant grins. “I’m Julia, happy to have you. Do you already know what you want to put on them? We have a number of stencils over here, design books for inspiration over there, and pencils and paper for your own sketches right here.”

“I want to draw a musical notation around the rim,” Myka says. She’s been thinking about this. 

Helena’s face lights up even brighter. “Oh! Do you already have a piece in mind or are you open for requests?”

Myka blushes. “Definitely open for requests,” she says, feeling extremely grateful she doesn’t have to pick one of the long shortlist she’s prepared. “Can you note it down for me?”

“Of course!” Helena takes a piece of paper and a pencil, and then looks at Julia. “How many bars do you think would work?”

Julia puffs out her cheeks. “Four to eight, probably, depending on how complicated-slash-full they are?”

Helena nods avidly, already drawing lines. “Perfect.”

Julia turns to Myka. “I’ll grab a template for you to create the lines; a lot of people do notes,” she says. “Best to pencil-sketch it in before you start with the actual paint.”

Myka presses her lips together and nods, suddenly nervous. She knows she’s not very talented in the art department; but musical notation isn’t necessarily art, right? Straight lines, notes in the right places, that should be doable? Especially if there’s a template.

“Here you go,” Helena says, looking up at Myka with a breathtaking smile and holding out the paper. “And for you, I want to do books. Just black on white, like this,” she taps the end of the pencil on her sketch, “so the two bowls will fit together.”

“A book lover and a music lover having ramen together, eh?” Julia grins. “That’s sweet. I’ll get your stuff.”

Helena goes on to sketch out her idea for Myka’s bowl, and Myka gets to work with the template. Her results aren’t perfect, but… acceptable. At Julia’s prompting, she initials the bottom of the bowl and puts the date under it, then watches Helena draw for a moment. 

There is the tiniest of concentration creases between Helena’s eyebrows, and she’s holding bowl and paintbrush so close to her face that she’s slightly cross-eyed. Right at that moment she’s touching the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. 

It is adorable. 

The books crowd the upper edge of the bowl, just like Myka’s band of notes. They look pell-mell: some dropped open, some tented upside-down, some stacked horizontally, some leaned against each other – like the messiest (and best) kind of books-I’m-currently-reading shelf. 

“There,” Helena says, sets the bowl down and rolls her wrists. Then she stretches her lower back, too, and shakes out her legs in front of her.

“Wow,” Myka says softly. “I didn’t know you were so good at drawing. May I?” Her fingers hover over the bowl; she wants to pick it up and see up close what Helena drew.

“Of course! Just… don’t smudge it?”

“I would never.”

“Here,” Julia says, bringing over something that looks like a lazy susan. “You can put it on and spin it around. No need to touch it, no chance of smudging.”

Myka shoots her a grateful smile, then does just that. As she turns the bowl around for the second time, she notices something. “Do they- are those letters?”

Helena blushes and nods. “M-hm.”

Myka makes the bowl revolve again, squinting as she makes out the design. Here’s a book that’s tented open next to two books leaned together at the top – that’s an M. Then a stack of books that don’t seem to spell out anything, but then there’s a paperback book that’s tilted a bit, bent open at the top, so it looks like a Y. A bit further on, amidst a jumble of books, three books leaning against each other to shape a K, and lastly, two large books leaning together and a small square book underneath them, making an A.

“Dork,” Myka says quietly.

Helena bites back a smile. “That’s not what I spelled out.”

“I know,” Myka replies in her best nerf herder voice.

They arrange for Julia to send them the bowls once they’re glazed and cooled, and then Myka bustles Helena out of the café and down two blocks to a nearby community center.

“Handy,” Helena says with a raised eyebrow, “that it should be so close by.”

“It’s the other way around, actually,” Myka says with a blush. “I picked this first, and then looked for stuff to do in the vicinity and found the café.”

Helena laughs. “You,” she says fondly. Just the one word, but it is bursting with love, and it makes Myka glow all warm in the cold air.

They arrive at this destination with a bit more time to spare. “Myka Bering,” Myka says to the receptionist, “we’re here for the, um…” Warmth rises in her cheeks.

“The partner maternity massage class?” the receptionist says with a big smile. “Sure! Can you just fill these out for me before you come up?” He holds out two clipboards to the both of them.

“Partner maternity massage, hmmm?” Helena’s voice has a teasing lilt, and Myka blushes even more deeply.

“I thought it was a good idea?” she tries.

“Oh I am positive it is,” Helena gives back, and her wink is positively wicked.

Forms filled and handed back, they’re sent to a room a few doors down a hallway, already filled with three other couples and an instructor.

“Sorry!” Myka says quickly, shucking her coat and hanging it on the rack near the door. 

“Don’t worry about it,” the instructor says. “You’re right on time. We were just chatting.” As Myka and Helena settle down in the last free spot, he goes on, “Why don’t we introduce ourselves – I’m Xander, he/him, I’ll be your instructor for today. I’ll be teaching you how to best take care of your pregnant partner’s body, how to alleviate their aches and pains, and what not to do as well. We have snacks out for anyone who needs to nosh, and we’ll have a lunch break at around twelve. Oh, and help yourself to as much water or tea as you like. Toilets are two doors down on the left,” he adds with a wink, and almost everyone around the circle laughs. Then he looks expectantly at the couple to his right.

“Hi, I’m Carrie and this is Aneel,” Carrie introduces the two of them. “I’m in week twenty-four, and I’ve had some really bad swelling in my legs. My OB suggested a massage therapist, but I figured why do that when we can learn how to do it ourselves!”

Xander hums. “I can only teach you so much in the five hours we’ll have today,” he says. “A certified massage therapist knows a lot more, has gone through a lot more teaching than that. So, don’t rule that out yet, okay?”

Carrie nods. Then the woman next to her speaks up. “I’m Mallory, week thirty-six. Just about ready to be _done_ with all of this,” she gestures at her belly, which is massive, “and Tim here suggested massages, probably as a way to save himself from my more murderous impulses. Can’t really get at him if he’s sitting behind me!”

People chuckle again, then it’s Myka’s and Helena’s turn. Myka isn’t sure what’s the protocol here; it seems the pregnant partner takes the lead? And what about those pronouns; should she mention them too, like Xander did, even if no one else has? She looks beseechingly at Helena, and with a small smile, Helena obliges. “Hello, my name is Helena. I’m also at twenty-four weeks-” she casts a wider smile at Carrie and goes on, “-and I’m here because Myka here surprised me for Valentine’s Day.”

Myka flushes swift and hot, but there are a couple of ‘awwws’ around the circle. 

Then the next couple’s male partner asks, “Micah? Isn’t that a man’s name?”

Helena is already drawing in air to reply, but Myka puts a hand on her arm; it’s the first time for Helena, but Myka has encountered this often enough, even though this is the first time someone used ‘man’ and not ‘boy’ – for what it’s worth. “Yep, and if I’d been boy, my dad would’ve called me Sue,” she says flatly. Usually that’s enough to shut the person up.

It’s true, too. Or at least it’s something that her dad told her, once. For whatever _that_ is worth.

The guy blinks, then inhales with an almost offended-sounding sniff. “Well,” he says primly. “We’re Brent and Hannah, and we’re in week twenty-two.” They look the youngest of the bunch apart from Helena and Myka, but apparently they’re also the most uptight.

Helena’s eyebrows are up, but Myka isn’t sure if that’s because of Myka’s words, Brent’s reaction to them, or him talking in the royal plural.

“Thank you, everybody,” Xander picks up the conversation. “Now, before we start, a few reminders, just in case: this is an inclusive space where we celebrate all kinds of bodies in all kinds of shapes and states. We want everybody to feel completely at ease here. Some of the moves I’ll show you work best skin to skin, but if you’re uncomfortable with that in here, feel free to keep your clothes on, or use one of the privacy screens we keep over there.” He points to the room’s far corner. “By all means let me know if you’re okay with me coming around it if you do, so I can observe and correct your technique if necessary. We’ll start out at your feet and they don’t really care if you massage them through socks or not; just keep in mind that shoes on won’t work,” he adds and laughs. 

As Xander talks them through which pressure points to look for and which to avoid, Myka notices that Brent and Hannah both keep steeling glances at her and Helena. She’s just about ready to acknowledge those glances with a stare of her own when Hannah speaks up. “It’s so lovely that you’re helping your friend through this, you know.”

Helena huffs out an annoyed breath. “Friend,” she mutters. Myka squeezes Helena’s ankle reassuringly – she’d rather not make a scene here. 

But Hannah doesn’t let it lie. “Oh, you look young enough to still be students,” she tells them with a sigh during a break, and Myka can hear Helena’s patience snap. 

“I fail to see how that is any business of yours, ma’am,” she says in syrupy tones. 

“Don’t you take that tone with my wife!” Brent bustles in.

“If she would kindly keep her backhanded compliments and fishing to herself, I’d be happy to,” Helena counters. 

“Hey, everyone,” Xander says, appearing behind the four of them, “let’s keep it kind, shall we? Hannah, please refrain from comments about people’s age, even if in your opinion they are friendly remarks.”

“But I was only…” Hannah begins, then works her mouth soundlessly for a moment.

“You were making assumptions, about their age and about the nature of their relationship to each other,” Xander says not unkindly. “I’m asking you not to, or if you must, to keep them to yourself.”

“Now don’t _you_ take that tone with my wife,” Brent says again, squaring up to Xander.

“It’s okay,” Myka says, finally getting the words out, “please, I don’t want to make a fuss.”

“Myka, thank you for saying that,” Xander tells her. “I appreciate it, I really do. But our statement on inclusivity is quite clear, and I won’t have them act this way on our premises.”

“What, you’d rather tell off a good Christian couple than a bunch of teenaged sexual deviants?”

“And there it is,” Xander sighs. “Yes, sir, I absolutely would and will. And in accordance to our terms of service, I will now ask you both to leave.” His face is set in stone. “Now, please.”

Myka is mortified. “No, seriously, can’t we just-”

Xander holds out his hands. “Nobody gets to call anyone a sexual deviant here,” he says quietly. “Or shame someone for whatever age they might be. We have a zero-tolerance policy against hate in this place, and frankly it’s amazing how people will click that they’ll abide by it and then spout BS like this. Sir, ma’am,” he addresses the ‘good Christian couple’. “Leave, please.”

For a moment, the room hangs in the balance. Then Brent scoffs, grabs his coat and storms out the door with a “You haven’t heard the last of this!” Hannah follows him a bit more quietly, and then the door closes behind them.

“Alright,” Xander says with a big breath, rubbing his hands. “Everybody, I’m sorry that this happened. Myka, Helena, please do _not_ feel bad about this. They had no right to treat you this way; none.”

“But aren’t you going to get into trouble?” Myka asks.

He grins. “Nah. Our contract and terms of service are watertight, and we have enough demand for what we do to send haters like these packing. You should’ve seen the reaction of some participants when I gave this class while I was pregnant,” he adds and his grin widens even further. “Newsflash, some men get pregnant!” He illustrates his words with jazz hands. “Seriously, though, don’t worry about it. The good thing is: I bet we now have _plenty_ of knots to take care of! So let’s get to it, right?”

He’s not wrong; there’s a lot of tension in the air. But the remaining two couples are kind – not scared into kindness, but genuinely kind – to Helena and Myka, with Carrie in particular happy to compare her symptoms with Helena’s in a chat that winds throughout the afternoon. 

Myka focuses on learning how to get Helena comfortable; she’s seen Helena wince and stretch and rub sore parts of her body more and more in the last couple of weeks, and she just wants to _help,_ in any way she can. It’s gratifying how Helena’s eyes will flutter close in contentment at Myka’s newly-learned ministrations. It’s a bit embarrassing when she groans in delight, but still – the main thing is that she’s feeling better, and if Myka having flaming cheeks is a byproduct of that, then that’s how it’s got to be. 

Tim looks just as discomfited, to be honest. Then again, Mallory is a good bit more vocal about what he’s doing right and what he’s doing wrong.

As the class wraps up, Helena turns to Myka. “At least let me take you to dinner, please, darling. You’ve done so much to give me an enjoyable Valentine’s Day; will you allow me to reciprocate?”

“Oh you guys are just too cute,” Carrie gushes, then slaps her hands in front of her mouth. “Oh shoot – Xander, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assume-” 

“Oh never mind,” Helena says bluntly. “Given what I just said I do think we’re no longer dealing in assumptions, are we. Yes, we’re a couple, and yes, I’m eighteen. And you better bloody well believe I’m going to take my girlfriend out to dinner now.” Her accompanying grin is fiercely proud, and warms Myka all over again.

“Girl, _I’m_ squeein’ over you two,” Xander laughs. “Beyond cute it what I’d call you if anybody asked me.” He gives Helena and Myka a broad wink, then claps his hands and takes a stack of calling cards out of his shirt pocket. “Okay, now everyone, here’s my email address and phone number – if you run into any questions back at home about how to touch each other’s body, just let me know, alright? Y’all enjoy yourselves now, and take care.”

They’re both quiet as they walk back to Helena’s car. It feels kinda weird to know that someone got thrown out of class over them – but also a little bit… good? 

“It’s nice that Xander stood up for us,” Helena says, on cue. “I almost feel like I could get used to that happening.”

“Yeah,” Myka says and smiles, shoulders sagging in relief. That’s it – someone did stand up for them. Picked them, the ‘deviants’, over the ‘good Christians’. “Yeah, that was kinda cool. Especially coming from a stranger.”

They arrive at the car and get into it – it’s cold, having been parked outside all day, and Helena immediately turns on the engine. “Look,” she says, shifting in her seat to sit on her fingers, “I am aware this isn’t environmentally friendly. But I’d rather not freeze my arse off, thank you very much.”

“Helena!” Myka squeals. 

“What? Oh. Oh, alright, alright, I’ll put a fiver in the swear jar back home.” Helena rolls her eyes. “Puritans. Anyway,” she goes on, “where to next? I assume you have a restaurant picked out?” Myka’s blush is all the answer she needs. She laughs. “You are a darling,” she says, tugging one hand out from under her and cupping Myka’s cheek. Then she presses a kiss to her lips. “I’ve been wanting to do that all day,” she breathes. “Thank you, Myka, for all of this.” 

“The day isn’t over,” Myka smiles back, “don’t thank me yet.”


	39. Helena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies! This was supposed to go up yesterday - it is a continuation of the previous chapter, and contains GLITTER. A little, anyway. Talk of it, at least.

Myka has – weeks ago, just like all the rest – reserved them a table for dinner at a nearby queer-owned restaurant. Because of course she has. The least, in fact the _only_ thing Helena can do is insist on getting the check. Myka has put so much thought into this, so much planning, so much love: it leaves Helena misty-eyed more than once. She can’t dwell on it for fear of full-on bursting into tears; damn those hormones.

Helena has no doubt in her mind that part of Myka’s research has been making sure that the places they’re going are accepting of having a female couple show up, and it is so sweet. She might still be judged for being pregnant at such a young age, but at least she won’t be judged for bringing her-

Fiancée. 

They’re not using the word out loud, of course, but it is what they are to each other, and Helena can only shake her head and stare in wonder whenever she remembers that this lively, bashful, smart, lanky, gorgeous girl sitting opposite her is, in fact, betrothed to marry her. 

She might be fiddling with her bracelet, every now and then, in lieu of pinching herself. And, every now and then, Myka’s hand will cover hers, still it on her wrist, and she’ll cast that smile Helena’s way, soft and tender, and everything will refract into rainbows again. 

Damn those hormones.

She is besotted with Myka, drunk on love, permeated and suffused and wholly imbued. Never saturated, though – never. 

She never thought she would feel this way. And now she’s feeling it twofold – for Myka, and for the child that will be not just hers, but theirs. Myka keeps saying ‘our child’ or ‘our baby’. And that one time she said ‘my kid’? Helena could have exploded with love. Could’ve just burst into hearts or sparkles or rainbow glimmer, she was so smitten. 

She has no recollection of what she’s eaten or if it was good as they drive back to the studio-slash-apartment. It might have been bread and water for all she knew. All she remembers is that their server offered to take a picture of them, with the restaurant’s Valentine’s Day fairy lights in the background, and that he insisted they look at each other, not at the phone camera. 

And how could she school her face into stoicism when she was looking at Myka, on a day like today? Smitten and besotted, soft and tender, and the server cooed and brought them second dessert on the house.

Maybe Claudia is right with her yearbook prediction, Helena thinks as she looks at the picture as the elevator takes them up; you had to be a hopeless romantic to endure the way she and Myka looked at each other. 

There are times now when hormones get the better of her in none too wholesome ways, and then there are these moments here, where she’s just awash with joy and tenderness, when she feels like she could fly, or at the very least dance across park benches and rooftops in a slightly gravity-defying way, and she fully realizes that this would make some people barf – but they can go hang for all she cares. 

She has never been this happy.

The thought hits her as they walk down the apartment’s central hallway, and she has to catch Myka’s arm and stop her and tell her, right there, right then, and if that leads to yet more tears and hugging for the sheer joy of it, then so be it. 

Charlie is tinkering on the studio’s mixing computer, and pokes their head out of the door when they pass by. “You girls decent?” they ask with a grin. “Should I leave you alone some more?”

“Oh, shush,” Helena tells them. She proceeds to describe all the things Myka arranged for the two of them while they all make their way to the sitting area. Myka is crimson, but her smile lingers. 

“Wow, Hellbug,” Charlie says when she’s done. “That’s a high bar for you for the next big date.”

“What next big date?” Myka asks with a small frown of confusion. 

Charlie shrugs. “Whenever you want to have another big date,” they say. “I don’t know, prom maybe? Isn’t that a thing in people’s last year of school?”

Myka inhales sharply and holds her breath. “Um, I guess,” she says then. “I… I mean we always… I dunno, there was never really a question or plan or anything, but I always assumed the whole gang would go together, you know.”

“And does anyone else in the gang have a joyfriend?” Charlie asks.

Myka sucks in her lower lip and looks off to the side, as if she’s been caught at something. “No,” she admits. 

“So… circumstances have changed since you last thought about it,” Charlie prompts. “You can still go together with the gang, just… the two of you a bit more together than the others, that’s all. I mean that’s fair, right?”

Helena decides to step in; Myka looks supremely discomfited. “When is prom, anyway?” she asks. 

“March twenty-eight,” Myka says at once. 

“So… two weeks after your wedding date?”

Helena rolls her eyes at Charlie. “That’s not fixed yet, only penciled in,” she tells them. 

“Your provisionary wedding date, then,” Charlie insists. “Girls, what I’m getting at here is that you can do both, and get twice the usage out of any finery you get.”

Myka groans. “Don’t remind me,” she says, flopping into the sofa and burying her head under her arms in an adorably pouty display. “I hate clothes shopping.”

“You didn’t mind when we went together,” Helena points out. She’s warming to the idea of going to prom together – it’s something she’s only ever seen in movies or on TV; it would be nice to experience it for herself now that she has the chance. 

“Well yeah, because you-” Myka bites off her sentence.

“What?” Helena asks. “Because I what?”

Myka groans in frustration again. “Because you were so… I don’t know, happy? With how I looked?” Her arms are still across her face, muffling her words. Helena is one hundred percent sure Myka is blushing furiously, again or still. 

“Of course I was,” she says, a tad indignantly. “Because you looked incredible, especially in that summer dress, and in button-ups and slacks.” She moves over to sit next to Myka. “Don’t tell me anyone else has ever told you that?”

Myka scoffs. “My mom, but she… I mean, she has to, right? And all Tracy ever said was that this shirt was too boring and how she wouldn’t be seen dead in pants like those and-” 

“Sweet Lilith, Myka,” Charlie says sharply. “Next time I see her I will have words with that girl.”

Helena is grateful for the intervention, but Myka seems mortified. “No!” she exclaims. “Please don’t. Anyway, I don’t mind going with you, just… we can’t go together, right, for this? If that’s also going to be the dress for our wedding. That whole ‘don’t see the bride before the wedding’ thing?”

“Poppycock!” Charlie laughs. “You know that originated when marriages were still arranged between two families, right, and the wedding was the first occasion that the two people would see each other? Bad luck my ar- arm,” they quickly amend. “The whole nonsense was out of the fear that one of them would go running if they spotted the other and didn’t like what they saw. I daresay that won’t happen to you two.” Their voice softens. “Look, it can be sweet, not seeing the other at all beforehand and being surprised at how incredible they look when the moment comes. If that’s what you want, go for it; far be it from me. But if taking Helena helps you feel confident about your choices, then, Myka darling, just go for it. Change the ruddy rules. Who gives a fig, anyway? Do what _thou_ wilt, eh?” they wink, even though Myka is still barricaded behind her arms. “And for a happy compromise,” they go on, spreading their arms, “you could make me the intermediary. As in, all three of us go, and I tell each of you if what you’re wearing looks good on you and fits with what the other is choosing. Like the cheesiest rom-com gay best friend ever!”

Myka’s arms slowly sink down. The look she gives Charlie is baffled, but not fundamentally opposed. “That… might work?” She looks at Helena next, questioning and oddly shy. “Right?”

Helena is more concerned about something else. “Potentially, yes,” she says absentmindedly, “but how on Earth are we going to find a store on short notice that won’t have a problem with the two of us walking in?”

“Darlings, I’ve got you covered. I have _planned_ for this,” Charlie says with a dramatic gesture, “ever since you first uttered the word marriage, or wedding, or whichever it was.”

Helena raises her eyebrows at them. “You have?”

They press both hands against their chest with an affronted gasp. “Hellbug, you wound me. I am a fairy, after all; who better to plan how and where to get you some glitter? As luck would have it, there is a spectacular place right here in Denver, did you know? First I checked Colorado Springs, but wouldn’t you know-”

“I am not wearing glitter,” Myka says very firmly. 

“Oh I was just saying that,” Charlie gives back with a dismissive wave. “Of course you aren’t.” They point at Helena. “She will be.”

Helena blinks. “What?”

* * *

The very next day, at ten in the morning (at least it’s not nine this time), Charlie leads them into Bianca’s Emporium, a place highly recommended by the entire queer community of the state of Colorado, apparently.

The store is on the small side, but packed to the rafters with dresses, suits, fabric, and assorted paraphernalia. One wall is covered with a rack of high heels in all colors and sizes – _truly_ all colors and sizes. Basketball players could shop for heels in their team colors and come away satisfied.

“Hello there, how can I- _ay dios mío!”_ That is Bianca, all five feet (if Helena is any judge) of her bouncing over and then stopping in her tracks. “I couldn’t tell you when I last was asked to find _maternity_ attire! Come in, come in, oh, this is going to be great.” She pulls them further into her store by their hands, chatting all the while. “What’s it going to be – formal wear? Stage wear? Hermose, don’t I know you from somewhere?” she asks Charlie, squinting up at them. 

“Well, I have to admit I never shopped here before,” Charlie says as they eye the proffered merchandise, “but I am one hundred percent certain that that will change.” They turn once, slowly, like a child in a candy store, then shake themselves and clap their hands. “But! We’re not here for me, Bianca dear, we’re here for these two. Wedding and prom, two weeks apart, little to no glitter.”

Bianca gives Helena and Myka an appraising look and then breaks into a beaming smile. “You,” she says, “have come to the right place.”

Bare minutes later, Helena has to agree. 

Bianca peppers them with questions – how far along on the dates of the two events (twenty-seven and twenty-nine weeks, respectively), favorite colors or color scheme (Myka wordlessly points to the beads on Helena’s bracelet and Helena has to hold herself back from kissing her), favorite style of dress (hard to say, but when Bianca shows them mid-century outfits, Myka’s eyes begin to shine) – and while Helena carries herself well enough, Myka keeps getting tongue-tied and hasn’t stopped blushing since the interrogation started. 

“Oye, linda,” Bianca says finally, kindly, peering at Myka over her glasses, “what’s got you so in a twist, eh?”

Myka is biting the inside of her cheek, Helena can see it. She seems too conflicted to say anything outright, now that she’s on the spot, and Helena voices her suspicion. “Is it that thing about not being the pretty one again?” she asks.

Myka gives her a wild look, then slinks into her seat as if she wants to melt through it and vanish. 

_“Vaya,”_ Bianca sighs. “Who told you that bull crap?” She gestures abruptly. “Eh, doesn’t matter. Does _not_ matter. You _will_ go to the ball, and you will look so absolutely splendid people will speak of it for decades. I promise. Trust me. Twenty percent off next purchase if they don’t.” She sniffs and nods. “Now, dress or suit?”

Myka blinks and then blushes. She can’t meet anyone’s eyes – not Bianca, not Charlie, not Helena – when she murmurs, “I’ve always wanted to wear a dress. But isn’t a suit, like, more sensible?”

“Oh I’m not talking about a _pant_ suit here, linda,” Bianca scoffs. “We’re talking formal wear. Sensible don’t come into it; this is about making people’s eyes fall out of their heads.”

“But isn’t that, like, a lot of money to spend on something you’re not going to wear more than once? Or twice, I guess?”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Charlie says. 

“Oh no. No, absolutely not,” Myka replies immediately.

“Yes, though,” Charlie insists. “Look, Helena I’m gonna throw money at because she’s missed out on _years_ of birthday and Christmas gifts, and _you_ I’m gonna throw money at because you make my baby sister deliriously happy, and besides, this way I have my wedding present all covered already and don’t need to fret whether I’m going to give you silver steak knives or a toaster oven.” They gesture at the end of their delivery as though this is the most self-evident matter in the whole universe.

“I _like_ you,” Bianca tells them. 

Myka just grits her teeth. Before she can say anything, though, Charlie shakes their head at her. “Save yourself the breath, darling. I’m doing this. Got my heart set on it. Don’t make me pout.”

“Yes, linda, don’t,” Bianca says. “When someone begs this hard to spend money on you, you-” She stops and squints at Charlie again. “You good for it?”

Charlie grins. “Bianca dear, you don’t know the half of it.”

Bianca turns back to Myka. “You _let_ them,” she finishes. 

Myka flops her arms with a frustrated huff, and Charlie squeals and bounds in to hug her. “You won’t regret this,” they say. 

Myka glowers at him – narrows her eyes and scrunches up her nose, but Helena can tell she’s not really angry, and the resulting facial expression is so positively endearing that it takes her breath away.

“So,” Bianca says, turning to Helena. “That’s a dress for her, then, but what about you?”

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to wear a tux,” Helena says, “but that’s out of the question, isn’t it?” She gestures at her belly. 

“Hah!” Bianca laughs. “No. No, no, no, guapa. Do not worry. You want a tuxedo, Bianca will find you a tuxedo.” She tilts her head, regarding the two of them with a practiced eye. “I have a thought. Let’s see.” And she bustles off in among the stacks. 

Charlie, meanwhile, is craning their neck for something. “Ah,” they say after a moment. “Over there. Come on, ladies.” And they pull them towards the changing area. “Excellent – look at this. One for you,” they point at the left of the two cubicles and usher Helena towards it, “and one for you.” They gesture Myka towards the right one. “Now if you don’t want to see each other, just don’t peek out. See?”

Once they start trying on clothes in earnest, Helena feels like she is done in no time at all; Bianca has a good eye and a keen sense of style, and the outfits she lays out in front of Helena are marvelous. Simply marvelous. There’s one shirt in particular that Helena is positively enamored with; it looks like a man’s dress shirt, all stiff collar and cuffs, but the rest of the fabric is actually really flowy, and is clearly cut for a pregnant body. And while it hangs loose on her now, she’ll have filled out in a few more weeks. It’ll still be a relaxed fit, but it’ll look stylishly sloppy, like it’s on purpose, and that’s exactly up Helena’s alley; it is _perfect._

It seems harder to find something for Myka, and to make sure on top of that that the two outfits match. Charlie and Bianca have their heads together long and often and very seriously. Snatches of, “this color is _gorgeous_ on her, but the cut, I don’t know,” and similar abound. Myka, for her part, is utterly quiet, and Helena longs to get out there and reassure her fiancée (there’s that word again) that no matter what, she’ll look stunning. “I think I’ve got it,” Bianca crows, twenty minutes in. “Oh just you wait.” Helena then hears her heels clatter as she speeds past the cubicle.

The heels return a few moments later, and a minute after that, there’s a soft “Oh,” from Myka that makes Helena’s heart beat wildly. A curtain rustles, Charlie gasps, and lord, does Helena want to take a peek.

 _“Ay que hermosa,”_ Bianca sighs. 

“And the- _that_ combo for Helena?” Charlie asks. “The one with the-”

“Sí. Yes. Well, with different contrast color, but yes. Oh, can’t you just see it in front of your eyes?”

“Is this okay?” Myka asks, and the trepidation in her voice is heart-breaking.

“Girl,” Charlie says, very solemn, very intent. “Myka. Look at me. Darling, read my lips, okay? _You_ look _stunning._ ”

Helena, behind her curtain, closes her eyes in supplication. 

“Beautiful,” Bianca agrees. “These eyes, your hair, this dress? Perfect. _Bellísima.”_

“Should I straighten my hair? Isn’t it more, like, elegant? For the occasion?”

Helena slaps her hand over her mouth not to shout out ‘No!’ If Myka wants to straighten her hair, if that is what would make her happy, then Helena is not going to stand in the way of that.

“You could do that, linda, yes – but.” Bianca sounds very serious. “One, only if you’re sure that’s what you want to have in every picture of the occasion, see? And two, try it out a couple of days beforehand – straighten the hair, wear the dress, see if you like the combo. Nothing worse than spending all that time day of, and then putting on the dress and thinking, no, no, no, it doesn’t fit together. You know?”

There’s a moment of silence and Helena imagines Myka nodding pensively, with a little frown maybe, as she takes this to heart. It’s the kind of thing she thinks Myka would do after receiving advice like this. 

“Now, how about shoes?” Bianca asks. “Heels or no?”

“Helena, will you wear heels?” Myka calls out. 

“She will not,” Bianca says flatly. “Seven months pregnant? No heels, no, no, no.”

“Yeah, I never believed in this beauty is pain bollocks anyway,” Charlie adds. 

“Do I get a say?” Helena asks, a little peevishly. 

Bianca tuts. “Ah, guapa, let me show you shoes I have that will fit with your clothes, yes? With heels, without heels. And then _you_ tell me if you want to wear those heels all night.”

Myka giggles. Then she clears her throat. “Can I… um. Can I have a look at both kinds, too?”

“Of course you can, linda,” Bianca says. “Charlie, get your sister to change into this, yes?”

The trousers that Charlie hands Helena through the curtain have a satiny stripe covering the outside seam of the leg – in bright red. But that won’t be the contrast color, not after what Bianca has said – is she going to change it? Order a different pair? _Make_ a different pair?

“Stop thinking, Hellbug; just put the damn pants on,” Charlie says from outside the cubicle. 

Myka chortles again – it sounds like she’s back in her own cubicle as well. 

Helena huffs in dramatic annoyance, just to hear that giggle once more, and then does what she’s told. By the time she’s done with trousers and the corresponding jacket – with equally bright red lapels – Bianca is back.

With stilettos. 

“Oh, _alright,”_ Helena grouses at her. And she gets the point; she really does. With a tux like this, the shoes need to look sharp too; block heels won’t cut it. And truth to tell, her feet _have_ been hurting off and on, except yesterday when Myka massaged them. The flats that Bianca offers, in contrast, are modeled after men’s dress shoes with a feminine twist, just like the tux itself, and seem much more appealing.

Bianca looks at her looking at them, and just nods. Helena is glad that the woman doesn’t belabor the point.

There’s a bit of a whisper going on outside, and a surprised laugh from Bianca. Then the woman says, “That is an excellent idea, Charlie dear. Yes. Over there, through the door behind the shirt shelves, is a bin. Go.”

Helena can hear receding steps, then Bianca speaks up again. “Did I get the right size for you, Helena? Keep in mind, though, that your feet can change. If the shoes are tight at all now, better go up a size.”

“No, these are good,” Helena calls out through the curtain. 

“And what about you, Myka?”

“I…” Helena can hear Myka’s misgivings. “If I wear these, and Helena wears flats, I’ll… I’ll tower over her. Like the sixty-foot woman.”

“Myka,” Helena says quickly, to get it in before Myka can talk herself out of it, “I do not mind either way. Honestly. Please. _Please_ wear whatever makes you feel good about your looks, about the occasion. Whichever shoes, or clothes, or hairstyle, or make-up achieves that – _that’s_ the most important thing to me, alright? All I want is for you to feel as stunning and beautiful as Charlie and Bianca say you are. Please?”

Bianca sighs something under her breath. 

Myka is quiet. Then, “Okay.” It is the softest word that Myka has spoken all day. 

It turns out that what Charlie was sent to fetch were strips of cloth to fashion blindfolds from. When Helena’s outfit is complete, Bianca ties one across her face, chuckling all the while. Then she leads Helena out of the cubicle to stand in front of the mirror – or so Helena assumes. She can hear a curtain being drawn, and hesitant steps, and then a familiar hand finds hers and holds on tight. 

The angle is different. 

Myka must be wearing heels. 

Helena hates the blindfold with a sudden, fiery passion.

“By all of inferno’s fires,” Charlie breathes. “Bianca, darling?”

Bianca hums, clears her throat, says, “Sí?”

“They look marvelous, don’t they?”

Behind her blindfold, Helena rolls her eyes. Myka’s hand squeezes hers. 

“Well, the colors don’t fit together yet,” Bianca says critically, “but apart from that? Beautiful. Sí. Hermosísimas. Girls, I will personally make the changes today, and send you the results in the mail, yes? And Helena,” her accent sharpens the H, “guapa, try on your clothes four days before each occasion, and let me know if I need to let them out. Alright?”

Helena nods. “Of course.”

Bianca insists on taking a few pictures. Just for herself, she says, just to remember this day. She also insists that Helena and Myka send her more pictures from their wedding, and from prom. 

“If their eyes are anywhere but on each other,” she tells Charlie, “full refund. Promise.”

Charlie just laughs.


	40. Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters (or rather, one and a half, really) today - but the next one isn't until March 13! *sad trombone* But! If you've been paying attention, you know what's gonna happen on March 13! *air horn* So hopefully that'll make up for it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for this chapter: father-daughter conflict, self-inflicted unintentional injury, vomiting

Things come to a head in the Bering household the very weekend Myka and Helena come back from Denver. 

Things were so nice in Denver. Myka felt so happy, spending time with Helena and Charlie the way they did. Valentine’s Day, when Helena stopped her in the hallway to tell her she’s never been so happy – Myka could have hugged the whole world over that feeling. 

Why does her father have to ruin it? 

He doesn’t even have to do anything; just being around him on Sunday while he doesn’t say a single word that isn’t about books or the store is already enough. Every minute she spends in his vicinity is a minute closer to the point where something has to give.

And her mother isn’t helping. That night, Jean Bering _again_ comes into Myka’s room, _again_ tries to tell her that her father really loves her, _again_ asks if Myka has read the novel he wrote.

Myka hasn’t, and truth to tell she has no intention to. 

“Mom,” she again tries to explain. “I want him to tell me. I don’t want to infer or extrapolate. I don’t want to have to. Can’t you see that?”

Her mom sighs. “Yes, Myka, but-”

“No, Mom. No buts. It’s really not that hard. And if it really is too difficult for him, maybe he needs to get some help.”

Jean looks startled at that, then averts her eyes and nods. “I just want you to know that he loves you, sweetheart. He does.”

“Mom…” Myka sighs and grits her teeth. It’s always the same pattern. Jean comes in, tries to explain, tries to make excuses, tries to speak for her husband. This is the fourth time, and Myka has had it. “You always say that, but you know what? I don’t believe it. And you know, I wouldn’t even believe him if he told me. Actions speak louder than words, right?” She gestures to her trophy shelf. “I’ve never even gotten a ‘well done’ for these, Mom. Not a single one. Not a ‘good job’, nor anything else. Tracy gets them from him; hell, _Pete_ gets them. All _I_ ever hear from him is how I can be better, how I can do better, always just a comprehensive account of what I did wrong. How, Mom? How does that translate to… to him loving me?”

“Myka…”

 _“No._ Let me put it this way, because I really, _really_ don’t think you understand.” Myka takes a deep breath, trying to find enough composure for this, but it’s hard. It’s something she’s pushed away for a while now, and it’s finally seeping through. “Helena and I will get married. In less than a month. And you know what? When I imagine that day, the day that’s supposed to be the happiest in my life – I can’t imagine him there. I can’t. Not if I want it to _be_ the happiest day of my life. And when I do try to imagine him there, all I see is his judgmental face, and nothing else. Not a dad giving a toast, not a dad making dad jokes, not a dad dancing with his daughter. None of that; and don’t tell me you can see it. And okay, maybe I don’t need a father-daughter dance, but I sure as hell don’t need his disapproval.” She inhales sharply, trying hard as hell not to cry. “D’you get that? Mom? That I don’t want him at my wedding because he’d only remind me, yet again, of all the ways I fall short in his eyes. Tell me, why would I want him there? When past experience, _seventeen fucking years of it,_ has given me no indication, none whatsoever, that he’s going to be happy for me or celebrate with me? And so I’m sitting here trying to decide what’ll hurt less – having him there all broody and judgy, or not having him there at all.”

She falls silent. Jean looks like she’s been run over by a truck, but Myka can’t stop now.

“That’s where we’re at, Mom,” she goes on, imploring her mother to understand. “No matter which I pick, it’s gonna hurt. Happiest day of my life? I can’t see that coming. And that _sucks,_ Mom. Tell me how that is okay. And _I_ can’t make that right. I’ve tried for all my life, Mom, and I’m sick of it. Nothing I did was ever good enough for him, _nothing._ And now I’m getting married at barely eighteen? To someone who’s pregnant? That’s sure as hell not what he ever wanted for me, and his is the only opinion that counts, right? So yeah, once again not good enough. Who cares that it’s what _I_ want – he never did. Not once. So why would this be any different?” She blows out a breath and realizes her cheeks are wet after all. Fuck. She dashes her hands across them, annoyed at herself. “I’m sick of it,” she mutters again.

Jean’s eyes are brimming, too, but at least, at last, she nods. 

Maybe this time, Myka thinks. Maybe this time her words will have made a difference. When she walks to the bathroom a while later to get ready for bed, she hears, through her parents’ bedroom door, her mom say, “- _over_ yourself, Warren. You are _losing_ her, for god’s sake. Do you really-”

Tracy’s door opens and Tracy peers out, face white. Wall to wall with their parents, she has probably heard every word that came before. She dashes over to Myka and hugs her, hard, even though she’s trembling. “Fuck him, okay?” she whispers in Myka’s ears. “Just… just _screw_ him.” And then she’s gone again, and what can Myka do other than go on towards the bathroom and take her shower?

Well, she can text Helena, afterwards. In the spirit of reaching out and all that. It’s solace to have her phone next to her at night. Not just in case Helena wants or needs to reach her (which is the official reason), but for when she needs to speak to Helena as well. Helena’s reaction is much the same as Tracy’s, and it reassures Myka no end to get it from two different people. It means she isn’t wrong. It has to. Right?

She’s in the middle of composing a reply to her fiancée when there’s a knock on her door. “It’s… me,” her father’s voice announces. 

Oh bloody hell, Myka sighs to herself, and her inner voice and diction is all Helena. “Yeah?” she calls out.

The door opens. Her dad stands there, mouth moving, hands clenched. “Do you… have a minute?” he asks eventually. 

Myka shrugs. “Yeah?” she says again. 

He comes in and makes a great show of closing the door very quietly – he’s nervous, she suddenly realizes. He’s actually nervous. It makes her feel a little better. And maybe that’s vindictive, but she doesn’t care. 

“I, uh…” He runs a hand across his head. “Look, kiddo, I… I’m sorry. I’d like to apologize.”

Myka frowns. Okay? “What for?” she asks. 

He does a double take. “What do you mean, what for?”

Myka barely suppresses a nod of resignation. “What do you want to apologize for?” Because if he doesn’t know, then he’s just here to appease his wife, to be able to tell her he did what she asked. 

And it’ll be worth nothing.

He stares at her, obviously at a loss for words, and Myka gives him the coldest stare she’s capable of. She’s learned it from him, and the satisfaction she takes from that is vindictive too, but she really is past caring. “Nice try, Dad. Better luck next time.” She reaches past him and opens the door, then stands and waits, doorknob in hand, till he’s left. 

She doesn’t slam it. You don’t slam doors in this household. No; she closes it very carefully, with barely a click. And then she sits down on the bed and tries her best not to puke or cry.

Her phone vibrates, startling her. Helena’s calling her? She answers it with a confused, “Hi?”

“Hello,” Helena says, and it is so nice to hear her voice. “Darling, are you alright? When you didn’t reply, I was worried, hence the call.”

Myka releases a long, soft breath through her lips. “Yeah, no, I’m okay. My dad knocked and wanted to apologize.” She scoffs. “Couldn’t even tell me what for,” she adds, “so I sent him away again.”

Helena swears under her breath. “Are you sure you’re alright? That does sound daunting.”

Myka flops back on her bed and stares at the ceiling. Her first instinct is to reassure Helena that everything is fine, but… that’s not what she should be doing. In the interest of leaning on someone when she’s not feeling well. “I might be a bit frazzled, yeah.”

Helena hums. There’s a rushing sound in her background, but Myka can’t quite place it. “I’m glad I decided to come, then.”

“Don’t you mean call?”

Helena chuckles, and it sounds incredibly smug. “I do not,” she says. “Come look out your window, darling.”

Myka almost falls over her feet as she makes her way over to her desk and the window behind it. Sure enough, Helena’s car is parked right outside the store – double-parked, in fact. “You can’t stop there,” Myka hisses, feeling frantic. 

“Oh I won’t be here long,” Helena says. “A moment, please.” Myka hears a lot of static and shuffling noises, and then Helena appears on the passenger’s seat and looks up at her. She gives a little wave. “Hello, darling.”

“Y-you came all the way here? Helena, it’s after ten!”

Helena hums again. “And I’m in my pajamas under this coat and boots, so whenever I get back home, I’ll go straight back to bed, I promise.”

Myka splutters some more. 

“Myka, I was concerned,” Helena says, a bit more seriously. “All I wanted was to make sure you were alright. See you with my own eyes. That is truly all.” She waves up again. “Of course if you would like me to, I could come upstairs?”

“What?! I… You… What would you even tell my parents for why you’re here?”

“That I’m five months pregnant and have a craving for my girlfriend? Being knocked up has to be good for something, doesn’t it?”

Myka doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or swear at this. “Helena,” she wails softly. 

“So that’s a no on coming up, then?”

Myka sighs. “One day,” she says, and then falls silent. 

“Hm?”

“One day,” Myka repeats, in barely more than a whisper, “we’ll live together. We’ll go to bed together every night, and wake up together every morning, and we won’t have to come up with _anything_ to tell _anyone_ as a reason for _anything.”_

“And it will be glorious,” Helena replies, catching on. 

“I love you. I wish-” Myka groans. “I wish you could stay.”

“As do I, darling,” Helena replies. “Soon, though. And until then – I love you too.” She presses a kiss to her fingertips and holds them up to her window. Myka does the same, and doesn’t give one single flying fuck about how cheesy it is. 

Helena drives off a few moments later, with the promise to send a text once she’s gotten home and a wiggle of her fingers through her rolled-down window. 

It is embarrassing how much Myka loves her. 

It is incredible how much better she feels for the visit, even though it leaves her with a bit of bad conscience too, for having made her five-months-pregnant fiancée drive through half the city and back. She only manages to assuage it by telling herself that in Helena’s situation, she would have done the exact same thing – except that, no, she probably wouldn’t have. It isn’t sensible. It’s incredibly romantic, and cheesy, and Myka is neither of those things. Then again, for Helena? For Helena, she would do _anything._

Two days later, her father is at her door again, looking even more unnerved. “Could I talk with you for a moment?”

Myka gestures him in. “What is it?” It’s not that she’s feeling hostile, not per se. It’s just… tiring. Same thing over and over again. 

“I, uh…” he licks his lips and rubs his hands together. “Can we sit down?”

She waves at the bed and sinks into her desk chair. Earlier today, she and Helena were up in the attic, snuggling and talking to the Demogorgon. She tries to put herself back into how peaceful that was. 

“Look, kiddo,” he begins, then shakes his head and amends to, “Myka,” and that, right there, is new. 

Myka sits up a little straighter. “Yeah?” She works on not holding her breath and sort of succeeds, but her jaw is a different matter. It clenches and it won’t let go.

“I, ah…” he sucks in a breath and holds it, then huffs it out again. Then he swears under his breath. “I, ah… I wrote things down; an aide-memoire. Would you… would you mind if-”

“As long as you don’t want me to read it,” Myka says, and yeah, maybe she’s being bull-headed about this, but she’s said, from the beginning, that he wants him to _talk_ to her. But if he wants to look down at his notes while he speaks – fine by her.

He shifts to get at his back pocket, and pulls out a folded sheet of letter paper. “I, um… talked to Jack. Asked him for help. This, uh. Is the result. I, uh… hope it will… clear things up.” He clears his throat, glances at the paper, and begins. “I… I wasn’t prepared for my child to be a girl. And that’s on me. And I guess I… I, uh, handled it pretty badly. I was… damnit, I was scared.”

Myka tries not to scoff. ‘His only job now was keeping her safe,’ echoes through her head. Right. “Of what, though?” she can’t help but ask. 

Her question makes him pause; he obviously hasn’t anticipated this to be a dialogue. “The world isn’t a good place for girls,” he says after a moment, in a tone that says this should be self-evident. 

Myka palms her forehead. “Dad…”

“And I wanted to prepare you for that,” he adds, turning back to his notes. “I wanted to make sure that whatever happened, you’d have a way to get through it. When you turned out to be as smart as you were, I knew you could do anything you wanted, with the right work ethic. I knew I couldn’t offer you much in terms of a leg up the ladder,” he gestures, and Myka isn’t sure if he means the room, the apartment, the bookstore downstairs, all of it, but she gets what he means. Other kids’ parents have connections. The Berings don’t. “But I knew that if you worked hard, you’d get to the top all by yourself.”

Myka tries very hard not to scoff. “You’re telling me you did all that for me. For my,” she does laugh at that, flat and bitter, “work ethic.”

His eyes flare up. “It was the only thing I could think of!” He winces and grits his teeth. “The only thing I was sure of,” he adds, in a lower voice. “That’s what I thought, at least.” He bites his lips together and rubs his scalp again. “I had my doubts. Every now and then. If I was doing the right thing.” His eyes fall down to the paper in his hand, and he scowls. “But I reckoned that even though you might hate me for it, you would still have what I gave you.”

Myka feels the words hit her in the gut, one after the other, bam bam bam. She slowly leans forward, incredulous despite having heard the words, having felt them impact. “You… you had your doubts?”

“Yes!” her father replies. “Of course I had – and you’ll understand that, when you… you know.”

“When I what.”

He clears his throat and looks down again. “When Helena… well. You _know.”_

Myka’s hands ball into fists. “When Helena what, Dad?”

“When the baby’s there!” he snaps. “When you’re suddenly a parent and have to make decisions that you’re wholly unprepared for, and you can only hope and pray they’re the right ones. Of course you’ll have doubts. Second thoughts. Misgivings.” He takes a sharp breath. “You’ll make mistakes,” he says softly. “And if you’re lucky, your kid turns out as remarkable as the person standing in front of me right now.”

‘Remarkable.’ It is all Myka ever wanted to hear, but it’s also nowhere near enough to outweigh seventeen years of not hearing it. And there are other words to focus on, so she does. “Misgivings,” she mutters. “Mistakes.”

“Myka.”

“Did you ever-” she stops herself; her jaw won’t open enough to get words out, almost. “Did it _ever_ occur to you to… just… treat me differently? You know, what with you having _doubts?”_

He stares at her blankly, and she can’t help it – she laughs. 

It’s a harsh, high, wild sound. 

She doesn’t know whether she wants him to say yes or no. Or anything at all. She feels like she’s on the verge of flying apart. “I mean that’s what you do when you make a mistake, yes?” she goes on. “That’s what _you_ told me, over and over again. You learn from it, you correct your course, you don’t let it happen again.”

“Kiddo…”

“Don’t call me that!” she yells. Her chest hurts. Her lungs don’t work as they should; breathing hurts. 

“Myka, then.” He sounds angry now, too. “Look, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry!” She barely has the air to get the word out. She presses her fingers together and tries to take a breath; not even a deep one, just a breath, just some air. “Sorry?” she repeats. “Sorry for what? Sorry for fucking up my life? Sorry for not realizing your _mistake,_ or listening to your _misgivings?”_ She spits the last word. “For being unable to admit you were wrong?”

“I didn’t know how!” he barks. 

“Then you should have figured it out!” she shouts back, her voice breaking. “Fuck,” she adds, dashing tears from her cheeks and biting the back of her hand to keep more from falling. The anger is lodged deep in her chest now, spreading its tendrils through her, making her feel sick and faint and hot. She probes at its source. “You’re saying it could’ve been different.” It hurts. “You’re saying that if you’d made different choices, you and me could’ve been just like you and Tracy.”

“I had learned a few lessons when she came around, yes.”

She stares at him. The anger inside her flares, roaring its rage through her veins at his admission, at how readily it comes, at how he doesn’t seem to begin to understand why his words enrage her. “Get out,” she says, low and cold. She rises from her chair; he rises too – and then he takes a step back from her.

It is very satisfying. 

“Get out,” she says again, pointing to the door. 

“Myka, I am sor-”

“Get _out!”_ she shouts, like she’s never shouted before. All her rage, all the venom and pain inside her she puts into the two words, and he stumbles back and is out of the room and she slams the door behind him and sinks to the floor against it. Everything is in her chest now, clawing to get out; her throat is raw from shouting and a sob climbs up it and it hurts, but not half as much as the realization that but for her father’s inability to correct his mistakes, she could have had a different life, she could have had what Tracy has.

Anger burns hotter and hotter inside her and she rises, stumbles to her trophy shelf, sweeps her arm across it with a yell and makes them all fall down, every last one of them. One of them lands on her pillow and she grabs it and _hurls_ it at the door, where it smashes with a sad little plasticky splinter; another, a small four-inch-tall goblet, falls all the way to the floor and she kicks it across the room with another roar. 

She is so goddamn _angry;_ she wants to wreak destruction, but smashing plastic is not half as satisfying as it needs to be, and it does nothing to alleviate the agony in her insides. 

One medal still clings to the very edge of the shelf, and she shouts at it, too, lunges at it and it falls, then grabs the whole fucking shelf and pulls until she hears it splinter. It comes away from the wall and she stumbles back and falls; something pierces her hand as she lands, and suddenly all she feels is sick. She stares at the fresh sliver of wood embedded in the heel of her left hand, mind a complete blank. Then she turns and vomits.

And then there are hands on her face pulling back her hair, hands that are cool and sure, hands that she knows. A voice is crooning soothing nothings to her as she vomits again; a body positions itself so that Myka can lean into it. She knows that voice, that body. It doesn’t compute that it’s here, but Myka doesn’t care, can’t make herself care, all she wants is to crawl into this body’s embrace and feel these hands hold her and hear this voice croon nonsense in Received Pronunciation. She’s curled around the ache in her chest, so tight but still not tight enough; it would hurt less, she thinks, if she could only make herself tighter but she doesn’t know how, but these hands, this voice, this body seem to know all about it, and so she gives herself over.


	41. Helena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short one, because I didn’t want to leave you hanging for 3 weeks with how the last chapter ended. Have a little bit of comfort for that hurt.

The room is a mess. 

That’s Helena’s argument as she extracts Myka from it and bundles her into her car with a bag hastily packed by Tracy. The room is a mess and the bed full of vomit and who knows how many splinters. It’s unfit for anyone to sleep in.

It’s been Tracy who sent the police light emoji into the group chat, Tracy who’s now responsible for explaining to her parents why she’s called for help, why Helena came, what’s going on. All Helena wants, _needs,_ is to take Myka home. 

First, though, a trip to the emergency room to get Myka’s hand looked at. Myka is cradling it to her as she stares unseeingly out of the passenger window. She hasn’t said a word yet, and Helena is brimming with the need to know what the hell happened. Myka has what looks like a four-inch long splinter of trophy shelf sticking out of her hand, the trophies themselves had looked like they’d been flung all across the room, Myka’s father had hovered around the place only to be sent into the living room by an astoundingly sharp-sounding Jean, and Tracy had seen fit to send out the police light emoji. 

And Myka isn’t talking. 

As Helena pulls into the hospital parking lot, Myka turns to her. “I’m okay,” she says. Her brow is creased in confusion; her eyes flicker between the neon sign over the hospital’s entrance and Helena’s face. 

“You need to get this looked at,” Helena says, nodding her chin towards Myka’s hand. 

“Oh.” Myka blinks. “Yeah. Yeah. Other than that, though,” she insists. “I just… I… I can’t talk about it. Not…not now?” Her eyes are trained only on Helena now, pleading with her. They look sincere. 

Helena does her best to trust that Myka knows what she’s doing. “Later, though?”

“Later,” Myka says, and her shoulders sag with relief. “I promise.”

“I don’t know if it registered,” Helena tells her as they walk towards the entrance, “but I’m taking you to Mrs. Frederic’s with me after this. Tracy packed you a bag. If you want to, that is.”

“Yeah.” Myka walks a bit closer to Helena for a moment, bumps shoulder against shoulder. “I do. Thanks.”

It’s almost midnight when they leave the hospital, wound cleaned and bandaged, tetanus shot administered, ready to bloody well call it a night. 

The Demogorgon has been performing backflips throughout, and though Helena had tried to limit it so as not to leave Myka by herself too often, she’s had to use the hospital bathroom four times in two and a half hours. 

Myka hasn’t been much more forthcoming with the doctor either. Always been clumsy, a too-strong grip, everything a little blurry. 

Helena kept her silence.

“Does it hurt?” is all she asks as they ready the guest mattress in Helena’s room – her bed is definitely too crowded for both of them now, with Helena’s pillow and her belly, infuriating though that is. 

“Not with that shot he put in there,” Myka replies. “Right now I don’t feel anything.”

“Good.” 

Leena, who was up and waiting for them when Helena pulled into the driveway, knocks on the door then, with two large glasses of water. “All settled in?”

“Yeah,” Myka replies. “Thanks, Leena.” She puts her glass out of arm’s reach on the floor, and puts the painkillers the doctor gave her next to it. 

“Sure thing,” Leena smiles. “Good night.”

“Night.”

“Good night, Leena,” Helena replies. 

The door closes, and Myka looks up at Helena in the light of the bedside lamp. “I got angry,” is what she says next.

Helena frowns. This seems like a non-sequitur?

“My dad came to talk to me,” Myka elaborates. “And I got angry, and yelled at him, and when he left I… well. Demolished the shelf, I guess.” She gives a short, bitter laugh. “Hulked out.”

“Okay,” Helena says slowly. She still has about a million more questions, but Myka is still looking awfully pale. 

“Can I…” Myka stops and grimaces, obviously conflicted. 

Helena tilts her head. “What is it?”

“Is there any way, you think, that we can… snuggle for a bit? I-” Myka snaps her mouth shut, but Helena has seen her lips wobble; her voice has been quavering too. 

It takes a bit of maneuvering on her bed and Helena definitely won’t be able to sleep like this, but nothing short of an actual doctor’s order would keep her from giving Myka what comfort she can. 

In bits and pieces, Myka tells her what happened. There are more tears, and a hefty dose of outrage on Helena’s part. 

“I… I just can’t get over the fact that he… that he _knew_ he was doing it wrong,” Myka says in the end. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. I mean if you’re driving down the wrong highway and you know it, you turn around eventually, right?”

Helena hums in the affirmative. “One would think so, yes.”

“I don’t get it,” Myka says again, tonelessly. Helena can feel her shake her head.

“I’m so sorry, darling.” The words feel woefully inadequate, and then she has to excuse herself for the bathroom _again._ “Perhaps _I_ should sleep on the mattress,” she says when she comes back, clambering into bed again and settling against Myka. “I seem to be in for a busy night tonight. At least that way I wouldn’t have to step over you to get out the door.”

“I’ll live,” Myka says indifferently. She’s quiet for a while and then says, “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“Anytime,” Helena immediately replies. 

“You didn’t have to, though.”

“Bol… derdash,” Helena saves herself from contributing to the swear jar. “Yes I did, and before you say anything about my state of pregnancy, might I remind you that I am, in fact, merely pregnant and not ill.”

Myka laughs softly. “Duly noted,” she says, and her arm moves in what Helena assumes is a salute. 

They lie in each other’s arms and talk about nicer things, such as what they want their future domicile to be like, until the pauses in their conversation grow longer and longer. Then Myka heaves an abysmal sigh and retires to her mattress. She leaves their hands intertwined, though, until Helena feels her grip slacken as she drops off to sleep. A few moments later Helena herself drifts off too.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always very welcome. Like I said, I haven’t gone to a US or UK high school, and I am well aware that there are things I don’t know or might have gotten wrong. Feel free to yell at me in the comments or, for spoilery stuff, find me on Twitter: @purlturtle.


End file.
